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I 

THE 



^i 



POE 




OEKS 



OWEN MEREDITH 

(ROBERT, LORD LYTTON). 



LuciLB, The Apple of Life, The Wanderer, Clytbmnestra, 

ETC., ETC. 



HOUSEHOLD EDITION. 



4(k 70^ 




BOSTON: 

HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 

CTfie Eiberfiitlie ^vtss, ©amfirilfffc. 

1880. 






"trf TraM&r 
...'UN g If07 



University Press: John Wilson & Son, 
Cambridge. 



CONTENTS. 



Pao» 

LUCILE .................. 9 

THE APPLE OF LIFE 150 

THE WANDERER. 

Dedication. To J. F. 157 

Pkologue. Paet 1 158 

"II. . ,. 163 

" III. . . / 164 

Book I. In Italy. 

The Magic Land 168 

Desike 168 

Fatality 169 

A Vision 170 

Eros 171 

Indian Love-Song 171 

Morning and Meeting 172 

The Cloud 173 

Root and Leap 173 

Warnings 173 

A Fancy 174 

Once. . . ' 175 

Since ...........' 176 

A Love-Letter .177 

Condemned Ones 180 

The Storm 180 

The Vampyre 182 

Change 188 

A Chain to wear 184 

Silence 184 

News 185 

Count Rinaldo Rinaldi 185 

The Last Message 187 

Venice 187 

On the Sea 188 

Book IL In Fbancb. 

"Prensus in Basa" 189 

\ l'Entresol 190 

Terra Incognita 191 

A Remembrance 192 

Madame la Marquise 193 



VI 



CONTENTS. 



THE WANDERER (continued). 

The Novel 194 

^«»-Aux Italiens 194 

Progress . . . . . . 196 

The Portrait 197 

ASTARTB 198 

At Home during the Ball 199 

At Home after the Ball . , 200 

Au Cafe * * * 201 

The Chess-Board 206 

Song . .... . • 206 

The Last Remonsteance 206 

Sorcery. To 208 

Adieu, MiGNONNE, ma Belle 208. 

To Mignokne . .'.'.'.'.'.'. . ...'.'. 209 

Compensation . 210 

Translations from Peter Ronsard : 

"Voici LE Bois QUE ma Saincte Angelette " 210 

" Cache pour cette Nuict." 211 

"Page sut Mot" 211 

"Les Espices sont a Ceres" 211 

"Ma Douce Jouvence" 211 

Book III. In England. 

The Aloe . . 212 

"Medio de Fonte Leporum" 213 

The Death of King Hacon 213 

"Carpe Diem" 214 

The Fount of Truth 214 

Midges 216 

The Last Time that I met Lady Ruth . . 217 

Matrimonial Counsels 218 

See-Saw 218 

Babylonia 219 

Book IV. In Switzerland. 

The Heart and Nature . . . . . . . • . ' . . . 222 

A Quiet Moment . . . . ' . . . . * . . . . 223 

Nmx!1m . 224 

Book V. In Holland. 

Autumn 225 

Leafless Hours 225 

On my Twenty-fourth Year . 225 

Jacqueline 226 

Macromicros 229 

Mystery 230 

The Canticle of Love . 233 

The Pedler .234 

A Ghost Story 235 

Small People 235 

Metempsychosis 235 

To THE Queen of Serpents .".'.' 236 

Bluebeard . . . . . ' 236 

Fatima 286 

Going back again 236 

The Castle op King Macbeth 237 



CONTENTS. vii 



THE WANDERER (eontinued). 

Death-in-Lifb 237 

King Limos . . . 237 

The Fugitive 238 

The Shore 23S 

The Noeth Sea 239 

A Night in the Fisherman's Hut: 

Part I. The Fisherman's Daughter 240 

" II. The Legend of Lord Rosencrantz 2fl 

" III. Daybreak 243 

" IV. Breakfast 244 

A Dream 245 

King Solomon 245 

Cordelia 243 

"Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth which was crucified" 247 

^o Cordelia ...... 249 

A Letter to Cordelia 250 

Failure 250 

Misanthropos . 251 

Book VI. Palingenesis. 

A Prayer . . . 253 

Euthanasia 253 

The Soul's Science 257 

A Psalm of Confession 257 

Requiescat 261 

Epilogue. Part 1 261 

"II 263 

" III 266 

TANNHAUSER. 

Tannhacser ; or. The Battle of the Bards 272 

CLTTBMNESTRA. 

Clytemnestra 300 

Good-Night in the Poech 340 

The Earl's Return 344 

A Soul's Loss . 356 

The Artist 358 

The Wife's Tragedy 361 

MINOR POEMS. 

The Parting of Launcelot and Guenevere 369 

A Sunset Fancy 374 

Associations 374 

Meeting again / 375 

Aristocracy 375 

The Mermaiden 375 

At her Casement 375 

A Farewell 376 

An Evening in Tuscany 376 

Song 377 

Seaside Songs. I . 378 

II 378 

The Summer-Time that was 379 

Elayne Le Blanc 379 

To 383 



viii CONTENTS. 



MINOR POEMS ^continued). • 

Queen Gueneverb 883 

The Neglected Heakt 384 

Appearances ... 384 

How the Song was made 384 

Betrospections 385 

Thy Voice across my Spirit falls 385 

The Ruined Palace 385 

A Vision of Virgins 886 

Leoline 387 

Spring and "Winter 388 

King Hermandiaz . . . 389 

Song 389 

The Swallow 389 

Contraband 390 

Evening 390 

Adon 391 

The Prophet 391 

Wealth 391 

Want ' 391 

A Bird at Sunset 391 

In Travel 392 

Changes 392 

Judicium Paridis 393 

Night 396 

Song 397 

Forbearance 397 

Helios Hyperionides 397 

Elisabetta Sirani 397 

Last Words 400 



LUOILE. 

— ♦ 

TO MY FATHEE. 

i DEDMiATE to yoii a work, which is submitted to the public with a diflfidence and 
hesitation proportioned to the novelty of the effort it represents. For iu this poem I 
have abandoned those forms of verse with which I had most familiarized my thoughts, 
and have endeavored to follow a path on which I could discover no footprints before 
me, either to guide or to warn. 

There is a monient of profound discouragement which succeeds to prolonged effort ; 
when, the labor which has become a habit having ceased, we miss the sustaining sense 
of its companionship, and stand, with a feeling of strangeness and emban-assment, 
before the abrupt and naked result. As regards myself, in the present instance, the 
force of all such sensations is increased by the circumstances to which I have referred. 
And in this moment of discouragement and doubt my heart instinctively turns to you, 
from whom it has so often sought, from whom it has never failed to receive, support- 

I do not inscribe to you this book because it contains anything that is worthy of the 
beloved and honored name with which I thus seek to associate it : nor yet, because I 
would avail myself of a vulgar pretext to display in public an affection that is best 
honored by the silence •which it renders sacred. 

Feelings only such as those with which, in days when there existed for me no critic 
less gentle than yourself, I brought to you my childish manuscripts, — feelings only 
such as those which have, in later years^ssociated with your heart all that has moved 
or occupied my own, — lead me once more to seek assurance from the grr.sp of that 
hand which has hitherto been my guide and comfort through the life I owe to you. 

And as in childhood, when existence isid no toil beyond the day's simple lesson, no 
ambition beyond the neighboring approval of the night, I brought to you the morn- 
ing's task for the evening's sanction, so now I bring to you this self-appointed task- 
work of maturer years ; less confident indeed of your approval, but not less confident 
of your love ; and anxious only to realize your presence between myself and the 
public, and to mingle with those severer voices to whose final sentence I submit my 
work the beloved and gracious accents of your own. 

OWEN MEREDITH. 



PART I. 



CANTO I. 



Letter from the Comtesse de Nevers 
to Lord Alfred Vargrave. 

" I HEAR from Bigorre you are there. I 

am told 
You are going to marry Miss Darcy. 

Of old, 



So long since you may have forgotten it 
now, 

(When we parted as friends, soon mere 
strangers to grow,) 

Your last words recorded a pledge — 
what you will — 

A promise — the time is now come to 
fulfil. 

The letters I ask you, my lord, to re- 
turn, 



xo 



LUCILE. 



I desire to receive from your haud. You 
discern 

My reasons, which, therefore, I need not 
explain. 

The distance to Serchon is short. I re- 
main 

A month in these mountains. Miss 
Darcy, perchance. 

Will forego one brief page from the sum- 
mer romance 

Of her courtship, and spare you one day 
from your place 

At her feet, in the light of her fair Eng- 
lish face. 

I desire nothing more, and I trast you 
will feel 

I desire nothing much. 

' ' Your friend always, 

"LuciLE." 



Now in May Fair, of course, — in the 

fair month of May, — 
When life is abundant, and busy, and 

gay: 
When the markets of London are noisy 

about 
Young ladies, and strawberries, — "only 

just out" : 
Fresh strawberries sold under all the 

house-eaves. 
And young ladies on sale for the straw- 
berry leaves : 
When caids, invitations, and three-cor- 
nered notes 
Fly about like white butterflies, — gay 

little motes 
In the sunbeam of Fashion ; and even 

Blue Books 
Take a heavy-winged flight, and grow 

busy as rooks ; 
And the postman (that Genius,indifierent 

and stern. 
Who shakes out even-handed to all, from 

his urn. 
Those lots which so often decide if our 

day 
Shall be fretful and anxious, or joyous 

and gay). 
Brings, each morning, more letters of 

one sort or otlier 
Than Cadmus himself put together, to 

bother \^ 

The heads of Hellenes ; — I say, in the 

season 



Of Fair May, in May Fair, there can be 
no reason 

Why, when quietly munching your dry- 
toast and butter. 

Your nerves should be suddenly thrown 
in a flutter 

At the sight of a neat little letter, ad- 
dressed 

In a woman's handwriting, containing, 
half guessed. 

An odor of violets faint as the Spring, 

And coquettishly sealed with a small 
signet-ring. 

But in Autumn, the season of sombre 
reflection. 

When a damp day, at breakfast, begins 
with dejection ; 

Far from London and Paris, and ill at 
one's ease. 

Away in the heart of the blue Pyrenees, 

Where a call from the doctor, a stroll to 
the bath, 

A ride through the hills on a hack like 
a lath, 

A cigar, a French novel, a tedious flirta- 
tion. 

Are all a man finds for his day's occupa- 
tion. 

The whole case, believe me, is totally 
changed. 

And a letter may alter the plans we 
J arranged 

Over-night, for the slaughter of Time, — 
a wild beast, 

'V^rrich, though classified yet by no nat- 
uralist. 

Abounds in these mountains, more hard 
to ensnare. 

And more mischievous, too, than the 
lynx or the bear. 



I marvel less, therefore, that, having al- 
ready 

Torn open this note, with a hand most 
unsteady, 

Lord Alfred was startled. 

The month is September ; 

Time, morning ; the scene at Bigorre ; 
(pray remember 

These facts, gentle reader, because I in- 
tend 

To fling all the unities by at the end.) 

He walked to the window. The morn- 
ing was chill : 



LUCILE. 



11 




The brown woods were crisped in the 

cold on the hill : 
The sole thing abroad in the streets was 

the AA'ind ; 
And the straws on the gust, like the 

thouglits in his mind, 
Bose, and eddied around and around, as 

though teasing 



Each other. The prospect, in truth, 

was unpleasing : 
And Lord Alfred, whilst moodily gazing 

around it. 
To himself more than once (vexed in 

soul) sighed 
" Confound it !" 



12 



LUCILE. 



IV. 

What the thoughts were which led to 

this bad interjection, 
Sir, or Madam, I leave to your future 

detection ; 
For whatever they were, they were burst 

in upon, 
As the door was burst through, by my 

lord's Cousin John. 

Cousin John. 
A fool, Alfred, a fool, a most motley fool ! 

Lord Alfeed. 



John. 



Who? 



The man who has anything better to do ; 
And yet so far forgets himself, so far de- 



His position as Man, to this worst of all 

trades. 
Which even a well-brought-up ape were 

above. 
To travel about with a woman in love, — 
Unless she 's in love with himseK. 

Alfred. 

Indeed ! why 
Are you here then, dear Jack ? 

John. 

Can't you guess it ? 

Alfred. 

Not I. 
John. 
Because I have nothing that 's better to 

do. 
I had rather be bored, my dear Alfred, 

by you, 
On the whole (I must own), than be 

bored by myself. 
That perverse, imperturbable, golden- 
haired elf — 
Your Will-o'-the-wisp — that has led 

you and me 
Such a dance through these hills — 

Alfred. 

Who, Matilda ? 
John. 

Yes ! she, 
Of course ! who but she could contrive 
so to keep 



One's eyes, and one's feet too, from fall- 
ing asleep 

For even one half-hour of the long twen- 
ty-four ? 

Alfred. 
What 's the matter ? 

John. 
Why, she is — a matter, the more 

I consider about it, the more it demands 

An attention it does not deserve ; and 
expands 

Beyond the dimensions which even crin- 
oline. 

When possessed by a fair face and saucy 
Eighteen, 

Is entitled to take in this very small star. 

Already too crowded, as / think, by far. 

You read Malthus and Sadler ? 

Alfred. 

Of course. 
John. 

To what use, 
When you countenance, calmly, such 

monstrous abuse 
Of one mere humau creature's legitimate 

space 
In this world ? Mars, ApoUo, Virorum ! 

the case 
Wholly passes my patience. 

Alfred. 
My own is worse tried. 

John. 
Yours, Alfred 1 

Alfred. 
Read this, if you doubt, and decide. 

John {reading the letter). 
" I hear from Bigorre you are there, 1 

am told 
You are going to marry Miss Darcy. 

Of old — " 
What is this ? 

Alfred. 

Read it on to the end, and you '11 know. 

John {continues reading). 

" When vje parted, your last words re- 
corded a vow — 

What you will " . . . . 



LUCILE. 



13 



Hang it ! this smells all over, I swear, 
Of adventures and violets. "Was it your 

hair 
You promised a lock of ? 

Alfred. 
Read on. You '11 discern. 

John (continues). 

" Those letters Task you, my lord, to re- 
turn." . . . 

Humph ! . . . Letters ! ... the matter is 
worse than I guessed ; 

I have my misgivings — 

, Alfred. 

Well, read out the rest, 
And advise. 

John. 

Eh ? . . . Where was I ? . . . 

{Contimces.) 
"3fiss Darcy, perchance. 
Will forego one brief page from the sum- 
mer romance 
Of her courtship." . . . 

Egad ! a romance, for my part, 
I 'd forego every page of, and not break 
mj' heart ! 

Alfred. 
Continue ! 

John (reading). 

"And spare you one day from your 

place 
At her feet." . . . 

Pray forgive me the passing grimace. 
T wish you had my place ! 
(Reads.) 

" I trust you will feel 
I desire nothing mu^h. Your friend "... 
Bless me ! " Lucile " ? 
The Comtesse de Nevers ? 

Alfred. 
Yes. 

John. 

What will you do ? 

Alfred. 
You ask me just what I would rather 
ask you. 

John. 
You can't go. 



Alfred. 
I must. 

John. 

And Matilda ? 

Alfred. 

0, that 
You must manage ! 

John. 
Must I ? I decline it, though, flat. 

In an hour the horses wtU be at the door, 

And Matilda is now in her habit. Before 

I have finished my breakfast, of course I 
receive 

A message for "dear Cousin John .'"... 
I jnust leave 

At the jeweller's the bracelet which you 
broke last night ; 

I must call for the music. "Dear Al- 
fred is right : 

The black shawl looks best : will I 
change it ? Of course 

I can just stop, in passing, to order the 
horse. 

Then Beau has the mumps, or St. Hu- 
bert knows what ; 

Will I see the dog-doctor?" Hang 
Beau! Iwillnof. 

Alfred. 
Tush, tush 1 this is serious. 
John. 

It is. 

Alfred. 



Very well, 



You must think — 

John. 
What excuse will you make, though ? 

Alfred. 

0, tell 
Mrs. Darcy that . . . lend me your wits, 

Jack ! . . . the deuce ! 
Can you not stretch your genius to fit a 

friend's use ? 
Excuses are clothes which, when asked 

unawares, 
i^Good Breeding to naked Necessity spares. 
You musif have a whole wardrobe, no 
doubt. / 

John. 

My dear fellow I 
Matilda is jealous, you know, as Othello, 



14 



LIJCILE. 



Alfred. 
You joke. 

John. 
I am serious. Why go to Serchon ? 

Alfred. 
Don't ask me. I have not a choice, my 

dear John. 
Besides, shall I own a strange sort of 

desire. 
Before I extinguish forever the fire 
Of youth and romance, in whose shadowy 

light 
Hope whispered her first fairy tales, to 

excite 
The last spark, till it rise, and fade far 

in that dawn 
Of my days where the twilights of life 

were first drawn 
By the rosy, reluctant auroras of Love : 
In short, from the dead Past the grave- 
stone to move ; 
Of the years long departed forever to 

take 
One last look, one final farewell ; to awake 
The Heroic of youth from the Hades of 

joy, 

And once more be, though but for an 
hour. Jack — a boy ! 

John. 
You had better go hang j^ourself. 

Alfred. 

No ! were it but 
To make sure that the Past from the 

Future is shut, 
It were worth the step back. Do you 

think we should live 
"With the living so lightly, and learn to 

survive 
That wild moment in which to the grave 

and its gloom 
We consigned our heart's best, if the 

doors of the tomb 
Were not locked with a key which Fate 

keeps for our sake ? 
If the dead could return, or the corpses 

awake ? 

John. ^ 
Nonsense ! 

Alfred. 
Not wholly. The man who gets up 
A filled guest from the banquet, and 
drains off his cup, I 



Sees the last lamp extinguished with 

cheeifulness, goes 
Well contented to bed, and enjoys its 

repose. 
But he who hath supped at the tables of 

kings. 
And yet starved in the sight of luxurious 

things ; 
Who hath watched the wine flow, by 

himself but half tasted, 
Heard the music, and yet missed the 

tune ; who hath wasted 
One part of life's grand possibilities ; — 

friend, 
That man will bear with him, be sure, 

to the end, 
A blighted experience, a rancor within : 
You may call it a virtue, I call it a sin. ■ 

John. 
I see you remember the cynical story 
Of that wicked old piece of Experience, 

— a hoary 
Lothario, whom dying, the priest by his 

bed 
(Knowing well the unprincipled life he 

had led. 
And observing, with no small amount 

of surprise. 
Resignation and calm in the old sinner's 

eyes) 
Asked if he had nothing that weighed on 

his mind : 
"Well, . . . no," . . . says Lothario, "I 

think not. I find 
On reviewing my life, which in most 

things was pleasant, 
I never neglected, when once it was 

present. 
An occasion of pleasing myself. On the 

whole, 
I have naught to regret " ; . . . and so, 

smiling, his soul 
Took its flight from this world. 

Alfred. 

Well, Eegret or Remorse, 
Which is best? 

John. 

Why, Regret. 

Alfred. 
No ; Remorse, Jack, of course ; 
For the one is related, be sure, to the 
other. 



LUCILE. 



15 



Regret is a spiteful old maid ; but her 

brother, 
Eemorse, tliough a widower certainly, 

yet 
""ffas been wed to young Pleasure. Dear 

Jack, hang Kegret ! 

John. 
Bref! you mean, then, to go ? 

Alfred. 

Bref! I do. 
John. 

One word . . . stay ! 
Are you really in love with Matilda ? 



• ■ Alfked. 
What a question ! Of course. 



Love, eh ? 



John. 

Were you really in love 
With Madame de Nevers ? 

Alfred. 
What ; Lucile ? No, by Jove, 
Never really. 

John. 

She 's pretty ? 

Alfred. 

Decidedly so. 
At least, so she was, some ten summers 

ago. 
As soft and as sallow as Autumn, — with 

hair 
Neither black, nor yet brown, but that 

tinge which the air 
Takes at eve in September, when night 

lingers lone 
Through a vineyard, from beams of a 

slow-setting sun. 
Eyes — the wistful gazelle's ; the fine 

foot of a fairy ; 
And a hand fit a fay's wand to wave, — 

white and airy ; 
A voice soft and sweet as a tune that 

one knows. 
Something in her there was, set you 

thinking of those 
Strange backgrounds of Raphael . . . 

that hectic and deep 
Brief twilight in which southern suns 

fall asleep. 



John. 

Coquette ? 

Alfred. 

Not at all. 'T was her own fault. Not 

she ! 
I had loved her the better, had she less 

loved me. 
The heart of a man 's like that delicate 

weed 
Which requires to be trampled on, boldly 

indeed, 
Ere it give forth the fragrance you wish 

to extract. 
'T is a simile, trust me, if not new, exact. 

John. 
Women chaijge so. 

Alfred. 
^ Of course. 

John. 

And, unless rumor errs, 
I believe that, last year, the Comtesse 

de Nevers * 
Was at Baden the rage, — held an abso- 

,lute court 
Of devoted adorers, and really made 

sport 
Of her subjects. 

Alfred. 
Indeed ! 

John. 
When she broke off with you 
Her engagement, her heart did not break 
with it? 

Alfred. 
Pooh! 



* O Shakespeare ! how couldst thou ask 
" What 's in a name ? " 
'T is the devil 's in it when a bard has to frame 
English rhymes for alliance with names that 

are French ; 
And in these rhymes of mine, well I know that 

I trench 
All too far on that license which critics refuse, 
With just right, to accord to a weU-brought-up 

Muse. 
Yet, though faulty the union, in many a line, 
'Twixt my British-bom verse and my French 

heroine, 
Since, however auspiciously wedded they be. 
There is many a pair that yet cannot agree, 
Your forgiveness for this pair the author in- 
vites, 
Whom necessity, not inclination, unites, 



16 



LUCILE. 



Pray would you have had her dress al- 
ways in black, 

And shut herself up in a convent, dear 
Jack ? 

Besides, 't was my fault the engagement 
was broken. 

John. 
Most likely. How was it ? 

Alfred. 

The tale is soon spoken. 
She bored me. I showed it. She saw 

it. "What next ? 
She reproached. I retorted. Of course 

she was vexed. 
I was vexed that she was so. She sulked. 

So did I. 
If I asked her to sing, she looked ready 

to cry. 
I was contrite, submissive. She softened. 

I hardened. 
At noon I was banished. At eve I was 

pardoned. 
She said I had no heart. I said she had 

no reason. 
I swore she talked nonsense. She sobbed 

I talked treason. 
In short, my dear fellow, 't was time, as 

you see, 
Things should come to a crisis, and finish. 

'T was she 
By whom to that crisis the matter was 

brought. 
She released me. I lingered. I lingered, 

she thought, 
With too sullen an aspect. This gave 

me, of course. 
The occasion to fly ia a rage, mount my 

horse, 
And declare myself uncomprehended. 

And so 
We parted. The rest of the story you 

know. 

John. 
No, indeed. 

Alfred. 
Well, we parted. Of course we could not 
Continue to meet, as before, in one spot. 
You conceive it was awkward ? Even 

Don Ferdinando 
Can do, you remember, no more than 

he can do. 
I think that I acted exceedingly well. 



Considering the time when this rupture 
befell. 

For Paris was charming just then. It 
deranged 

All my plans for the winter. I asked to 
be changed, — 

Wrote for Naples, then vacant, — ob- 
tained it, — and so 

Joined my new post at once ; but scarce 
reached it, when lo ! 

My first news from Paris informs me 
LucUe 

Is iU, and ia danger. Conceive what I 
feel. 

I fly back. I find her recovered, but yet 

Looking pale. I am seized with a con- 
trite regret ; 

I ask to renew the engagement. 

John. 

And she ? 
Alfred. 
Reflects, but declines. We part, swear- 
ing to be 
Friends ever, friends only. All that 

sort of thing ! 
We each keep our letters ... a por- 
trait ... a ring . . . 
With a pledge to return them whenever 

the one 
Or the other shaU call for them back. 

John. 

Pray go on. 
Alfred. 
My story is finished. Of course I enjoin 
On Lucile all those thousand good max- 
ims we coin 
To supply the grim deficit found in our 



When Love leaves them bankrupt. 1 
preach. She obej's. 

She goes out in the world ; takes to 
dancing once more, — 

A pleasure she rarely indulged in before. 

I go back to my post, and collect (I must 
own 

'T is a taste I had never before, my dear 
John) 

Antiques and small Elzevirs. Heigh- 
ho ! now, Jack, 

You know all. 

John {after a pause). 
You are really resolved to go back ? 



LUCILE. 



17 



Alfred, 
Eh, where ? 

John. 
To that worst of all places, — the past. 
You remember Lot's wife ? 

Alfred. 
'T was a promise when last 
We parted. My honor is pledged to it. 



WeU, 



John. 

What is it you wish me to do ? 

* Alfred. 

You must tell 
Matilda, I meant to have called — to 

leave word — 
To explain — but the time was so press- 
ing— 

John. 

My lord, 
Your lordship's obedient ! I really can't 
do . . . 

Alfred. 
You wish then to break oflf my marriage ? 

John. 

No, no ! 
But indeed I can't see why yourself you 

need take 
These letters. 

Alfred. 
Not see? would you have me, then, 

break 
A promise my honor is pledged to ? 

John QvummiTig). 

"Off, off, 
And away ! said the stranger "... 

Alfred. 
O, good ! 0, you scoff ! 

John. 
At what, my dear Alfred ? 

Alfred. 

At all things ! 

John. 

Indeed ? 
Alfred. 
Yes ; I see that your heart is as dry as 
a reed : 



That the dew of your youth is rubbed off 

you : I see 
You have no feeling left in you, even 

for me ! 
At honor you jest ; you are cold as a 

stone 
To the warm voice of friendship. Belief 

you have none ; 
You have lost faith in aU thingSi You 

carry a blight 
About with you everywhere. Yes, at 

the sight 
Of such callous indifference, who could 

be calm ? 
I must leave you at once, Jack, or else 

the last balm 
That is left me in Gilead you'll turn 

into gall. 
Heartless, cold, unconcerned . . . 

John. 
Have you done ? Is that all ? 
Well, then, listen to me ! I presume 

when you made 
Up your mind to propose to Miss Darcy, 

you weighed 
All the drawbacks against the equiva- 
lent gains, 
Ere you finally settled the point. What 

remains 
But to stick to your choice ? You want 

money : 't is here. 
A settled position : 't is yours. A ca- 
reer : 
You secure it. A wife, young, and 

pretty as rich, 
Whom all men will envy you. Why 

must you itch 
To be running away, on the eve of all 

this, 
To a woman whom never for once did 

you miss 
All these years since you left her ? Who 

knows what may hap ? 
This letter — to 'me — is a palpable trap. 
The woman has changed since you knew 

her. Perchance 
She yet seeks to renew her youth's 

broken romance. 
When women begin to feel youth and 

their beauty 
Slip from them, they count it a sort of 

a duty 
To let nothing else slip away unsecured 
Which these, while they lasted, might 

once have procured. 



18 



LUCILE. 



Lucile's a coquette to the end of her 

fingers, 
I will stake my last farthing. Perhaps 

the wish lingers 
To recall the once reckless, indifferent 

lover 
To the feet he has left ; let intrigue now 

recover 
"What truth could not keep. 'T were a 

vengeance, no doubt — 
A triumph ; — but why must you bring 

it about ? 
You are risking the substance of aU that 

. you schemed 
To obtain ; and for what ? some mad 

dream you have dreamed ! 

Alfred. 

But there 's nothing to risk. You ex- 
aggerate. Jack. 

You mistake. In three days, at the most, 
I am back. 

John. 

Ay, but how ? . . . discontented, unset- 
tled, upset. 

Bearing with you a comfortless twinge 
of regret ; 

Preoccupied, sulky, and likely enough 

To make your betrothed break off all in 
a huff. 

Three days, do you say ? But in three 
days who knows 

What may happen ? I don't, nor do you, 
I suppose. 



Of all the good things in this good world 

around us, 
The one most abundantly furnished and 

found us, 
And which, for that reason, we least 

care about. 
And can best spare our friends, is good 

counsel, no doubt. 
But advice, when 'tis sought from a 

friend (though civility 
May forbid to avow it), means mere lia- 
bility 
In the bill we already have drawn on 

Remorse, 
Which we deem that a true friend is 

bound to indorse. 
A mere lecture on debt from that friend 

is a bore. 



Thus, the better his cousin's advice was, 
the more 

Alfred Vargrave with angry resentment 
opposed it. 

And, having the worst of the contest, he 
closed it 

With so firm a resolve his bad ground 
to maintain, 

That, sadly perceiving resistance was 
vain," 

And argument fruitless, the amiable Jack 

Came to terms, and assisted his cousin 
to pack , 

A slender valise (the one small conde- 
scension 

Which his final remonstrance obtained), 
whose dimension 

Excluded large outfits ; and, cursing his 
stars, he 

Shook hands with his friend and re- 
turned to Miss Darcy. 

VI. 

Lord Alfred, when last to the window 
he turned, 

Ere he locked up and quitted his cham- 
ber, discerned 

Matilda ride by, with her cheek beam- 
ing bright 

In Avhat Virgil has called " Youth's pur- 
pureal light " 

(I like the expression, and can't find a 
better). 

He sighed as he looked at her. Did he 
regret her ? 

In her habit and hat, with her glad 
golden hair. 

As airy and blithe as a blithe bird in air, 

And her arch rosy lips, and her eager 
blue eyes. 

With their little impertinent look of sur- 
prise. 

And her round youthful figure, and fair 
neck, below 

The dark drooping feather, as radiant as 
snow, — 

I can only declare, that if I had the 
chance 

Of passing three days in the exquisite 
glance 

Of those eyes, or caressing the hand that 
now petted 

That fine English mare, I should much 
have regretted 

Whatever might lose me one little half- 
hour ■> 



LUCILE. 



19 



Of a pastime so pleasant, when once in 

my power. 
For, if one drop of milk from the bright 

Milky-Way 
Could turn into a woman, 't would look, 

I dare say, 
Not more fresh than Matilda was looking 

that day. 



But, whatever the feeling that prompted 
the sigh 

"With which Alfred Vargrave now 
watched her ride by, 

I can only affirm that, in watching her 
ride, « 

As he turned from the window, he cer- 
tainly sighed. 



CANTO II. 



Ldter from Lord Alfred Vargrave 

to tlie COMTESSE DE NEVERS. 

"BiGOERE, Tuesday. 
" Your note. Madam, reached me to-day, 

at Bigorre, 
And commands (need I add ?) my obedi- 
ence. Before 
The night I shall be at Serchon, — where 

a line. 
If sent to Duval's, the hotel where I dine. 
Win find me, awaiting your orders. Re- 
ceive 
My respects. 

" Yours sincerely, 

" A. Vargrave. 

" I leave 
In an hour." 

II. 
In an hour from the time he wrote' this, 
Alfred Vargrave, in tracking a mountain 

abyss, 
Gave the rein to his steed and his 

thoughts, and pursued, 
In pursuing his course through the blue 

solitude, 
The reflections that journey gave rise to. 
And here 
(Because, without some such precaution, 

I fear 
You might fail to distinguish them each 
from the rest 



Of the world they belong to ; whose cap- 
tives are drest. 
As our convicts, precisely the same one 

and all. 
While the coat cut for Peter is passed on 

to Paul) 
I resolve, one by one, when I pick from 

the mass 
The persons I want, as before you they 

pass. 
To label them broadly in plain black and 

white 
On the backs of them. Therefore whilst 

yet he 's in sight, 
I first label my hero. 



The age is gone o'er 
When a man may in all things be alL 

We have more 
Painters, poets, musicians, and artists, 

no doubt. 
Than the great Cinquecento gave birth 

to ; but out 
Of a million of mere dilettanti, when, 

when 
Will a new Leonardo arise on our ken ? 
He is gone with the age which begat 

him. Our own 
Is too vast, and too complex, for one man 

alone 
To embody its purpose, and hold it shut 

close 
In the palm of his hand. There were 

giants in those 
IiTeclaimable days ; but in these days of 

ours. 
In dividing the work, we distribute the 

powers. 
Yet a dwarf on a dead giant's shoulders 

sees more 
Than the 'live giant's eyesight availed to 

explore ; 
And in life's lengthened alphabet what 

used to be 
To our sires X Y Z is to us A B C. 
A Vanini is roasted alive for his pains, 
But a Bacon comes after and picks up 

his brains. 
A Bruno is angrily seized by the throttle 
And hunted about by thy ghost, Aristotle, 
Till a More or Lavater step into his place : 
Then the world turns and makes an ad- 
miring grimace. 
Once the men were so great and so few, 

they appear, 



20 



LUCILE. 



Through a distant Olympian atmosphere, 
Like vast Caryatids upholding the age. 
Now the men are so many and small, 

disengage 
One man from the million to mark him, 

next moment 
The crowd sweeps him hurriedly out of 

your comment ; 
And since we seek vainly (to praise in 

our songs) 
'Mid our fellows the size which to heroes 

belongs, 
We take the whole age for a hero, in want 
Of a better ; and still, in its favor, des- 
cant 
On the strength and the beauty which, 

failing to find 
In any one man, we ascribe to mankind. 

IV. 

Alfred Yargrave was one of those men 
who achieve 

So little, because of the much they con- 
ceive. 

With irresolute finger he knocked at each 
one 

Of the doorways of life, and abided in 
none. 

His course, by each star that would cross 
it, was set, 

And whatever he did he was sure to re- 
gret. 

That target, discussed by the travellers 
of old. 

Which to one appeared argent, to one 
appeared gold. 

To him, ever lingering on Doubt's dizzy 
margent. 

Appeared in one moment both golden 
and argent. 

The man who seeks one thing in life, 
and but one, 

May hope to achieve it before life be 
done : 

But he who seeks aU things, wherever 
he goes. 

Only reaps from the hopes which around 
him he sows 

A harvest of barren regrets. And the 
worm 

That crawls on in the dust to the definite 
term 

Of its creeping existence, and sees noth- 
ing more 

Than the path it .ptagues till its creep- 
ing be o'er, 



In its limited vision, is happier far 
Than the Half-Sage, whose course, fixed 

by no friendly star. 
Is by each star distracted in turn, and 

who knows 
Each will still be as distant wherever he 

goes. 



Both brilliant and brittle, uoth bold and 
unstable. 

Indecisive yet keen, Alfred Vargrave 
seemed able 

To dazzle, but not to illumine man- 
kind. 

A vigorous, various, versatile mind ; 

A character wavering, fitful, uncertain, 

As the shadow that shakes o'er a luminous 
curtain. 

Vague, flitting, but on it forever impress- 
ing 

The shape of some substance at which 
you stand guessing : 

When you said, "All is worthless and 
weak here," behold ! 

Into sight on a sudden there seemed to 
unfold 

Great outlines of strenuous truth in the 
man: 

When you said, "This is genius," the 
outlines grew-wan. 

And his life, though in all things so 
gifted and skilled. 

Was, at best, but a promise which noth- 
ing fulfilled. 



In the budding of youth, ere wild winds 
can deflower 

The shut leaves of man's life, round the 
germ of his power 

Yet folded, his life had been earnest. 
Alas! 

In that life one occasion, one momeut, 
there was 

When this earnestness might, with the 
life-sap of youth. 

Lusty fruitage have borne in his man- 
hood's full growth ; 

But it found him too soon, when his 
natur'^ was still 

The delicate toy of too pliant a will, 

The boisterous wind of the world to re- 
sist. 

Or the frost of the world's wintry wis- 
dom. 



LUCILE. 



21 



He missed 
That occasion, too rathe in its advent. 

Since then, 
He had^made it a law, in his commerce 

with men. 
That intensity in him, which only left 

sore 
The heart it disturbed, to repel and ignore. 

And thus, as some Prince by his subjects 

deposed, 
"Whose strength he, by seeking to crush 

it, disclosed. 
In resigning the power he lacked power 

to support, 
Turns his ba<i; upon courts, with a sneer 

at the court, 
In his converse this man for self-com- 
fort appealed 
To a cynic denial of all he concealed 
In the instincts and feelings belied by 

his words. ^\ 

"Words, however, are things : and the^ 

man who accords 
To his language the license to outrage 

his soul 
li controlled by the words he disdains to 
\^ control. 
ASS, therefore, he seemed in the deeds 

of each day, 
The light code proclaimed on his lips to 

obey ; 
And, the slave of each whim, followed 

wilfully aught 
That perchance fooled the fancy, or flat- 
tered the thought. 
Yet, indeed, deep within him, the spirits 

of truth. 
Vast, vague aspirations, the powers of 

his j'^outh. 
Lived and breathed, and made moan — 

stirred themselves — strove to start 
Into deeds — though deposed, in that 

Hades, his heart. 
Like those antique Theogonies ruined 

and hurled 
Under clefts of the hiUs, which, convuls- 
ing the world. 
Heaved, in earthquake, their heads the 

rent caverns above. 
To trouble at times in the light court of 

Jove 
All its frivolous gods, with an undefined 

awe. 
Of wronged rebel powers that owned not 

their law. 



For his sake, I am fain to believe that, 
if bom 

To some lowlier rank (from the world's 
languid scorn 

Secured by the world's stern resistance), 
where strife, 

Strife and toil, and not pleasure, gave 
purpose to life, 

He possibly might have contrived to 
attain 

ITot eminence only, but worth. So, 
again. 

Had he been of his own house the first- 
born, each gift 

Of a mind toany-gifted had gone to uplift 

A great name by a name's greatest uses. 
But there 

He stood isolated, opposed, as it were. 

To life's great realities ; part of no plan ; 

And if ever a nobler and happier man 

He might hope to become, that alone 
could be when 

"With all that is real in life and in men 

"What was real in him should have been 
reconciled ; 

When each influence now from experience 
exiled 

Should have seized on his being, com- 
bined with his nature. 

And formed, as by fusion, a new human 
creature : 

As when those airy elements viewless to 
sight 

(The amalgam of which, if our science 
be right. 

The germ of this populous planet doth 
fold) 

Unite in the glass of the chemist, behold ! 

Where a void seemed before there a sub- 
stance appears, 

From the fusion of forces whence issued 
the spheres ! 



But the permanent cause why his life 

failed and missed 
The full value of life was, — where man 

should resist 
The world, which man's genius is called 

to command, 
He gave way, less from lack of the power 

to withstand. 
Than from lack of the resolute will to 

retain 
Those strongholds of life which the world 

strives to gain. 



22 



LUCILE. 



Let this character go in the old-fashioned 

way, 
"With the moral thereof tightly tacked to 

it. Say — 
" Let any man once show the world that 

he feels 
Afraid of its bark, and 't will fly at his 

heels : 
Let him fearlessly face it, 't will leave 

him alone : 
But 't will fawn at his feet if he flings it 

a hone." 

VIII. 

The moon of September, now half at the 
full, 

Was unfolding from darkness and dream- 
land the lull 

Of the quiet blue air, where the many- 
faced hills 

Watched, well-pleased, their fair slaves, 
the light, foam-footed rills, 

Dance and sing down the steep marble 
stairs of their courts. 

And gracefully fashion a thousand sweet 
sports. 

Lord Alfred (by this on his journeymg 

far) 
Vas pensively puffing his Lopez cigar, 

And brokenly humming an old opera 

And thinking, perchance, of those castles 

in Spain 
Which that long rocky barrier hid from 

his sight ; 
When suddenly, out of the neighboring 

night, 
A horseman emerged from a fold of the 

Wll, . ^ 

And so startled his steed, that was wind- 
ing at will 
Up the thin dizzy strip of a pathway 

which led 
O'er the mountain — the reins on its 

neck, and its head 
Hanging lazily forward — that, but for 

a hand 
Light and ready, yet firm, in familiar 

command, 
Both rider and horse might have been 

in a trice 
Hurled horribly over the grim precipice. 



As soon as the moment's alarm had sub- 
sided. 



And the oath, with which nothing can 
find unprovided 

A thoroughbred Englishman, safely ex- 
ploded, 

Lord Alfred unbent (as Apollo his bow 
did 

Now and then) his erectness ; and look- 
ing, not ruder 

Than such inroad would warrant, sur- 
veyed the intruder, 

Whose arrival so nearly cut short in his 
glory 

My hero, and finished abruptly this story. 

X. 

The stranger, a man of his own age or 

Well mounted, and simple though rich 

in his dress, 
Wore his beard and mustache in the 

fashion of France. 
His face, which was pale, gathered force 

from the glance 
Of a pair of dark, vivid, and eloquent 

eyes. 
With a gest of apology, touched with 

surprise, 
He lifted his hat, bowed and courteously 

made 
Some excuse in such well-cadenced 

French as betrayed, 
At the fii-st word he spoke, the Parisian. 

XI. 

I swear 
I have wandered about in the world 

everywhere ; 
From many strange mouths have heard 

many strange tongues ; 
Strained with many strange idioms my 

lips and my lungs ; 
Walked in many a far land, regretting 

my own ; 
In many a language groaned many a 

groan ; 
And have often had reason to curse those 

wild fellows 
Who built the high house at which 

Heaven turned jealous, 
Making human audacity stumble and 

stammer 
When seized by the throat in the hard 

gripe of Grammar. 
But the language of languages dearesl 

to me 
Is that in which once, ma toute cheria. 



LUCILE. 



23 



When, together, we bent o'er your nose- 
gay for hours, 

You explained what was silently said by 
the flowers, 

And, selecting the sweetest of all, sent a 
flame 

Through my heart, as, in laughing, you 
murmured, Je t'aime. 



The Italians have voices like peacocks ; 

the Spanish 
Smell, I fancy, of garlic ; the Swedish 

and Danish 
Have something too Runic, too rough 

andaUnshod, in 
Their accent for mouths not descended 

from Odin ; 
German gives me a cold in the head, sets 

me wheezing 
And coughing ; and Russian is nothing 

but sneezing ; 
But, by Belus and Babel ! I never have 

heard, 
And I never shall hear (I well know it), 

one word 
Of that delicate idiom of Paris without 
Feeling morally sure, beyond question or 

doubt. 
By the wild way in which my heart in- 
wardly fluttered 
That my heart's native tongue to my 

heart had been uttered. 
And whene'er 1 hear French spoken as 

I approve, 
I feel myself quietly falling in love. 



Lord Alfred, on hearing the stranger, 

appeased 
By a something, an accent, a cadence, 

which pleased 
His ear with that pledge of good breed- 
ing which tells 
At once of the world in whose fellowship 

dwells 
The speaker that owns it, was glad to 

remark 
In the horseman a man one might meet 

after dark , 

Without fear. 

And thus, not disagreeably impressed. 
As it seemed, with each other, the two 

men abreast 
Rode on slowly a moment. 



XIV. 

Stranger. 

I see, Sir, you are 
A smoker. Allow me ! 

Alfred. 

Pray take a cigar. 

Stranger. 

Many thanks ! . . . Such cigars are a 

luxury here. 
Do you go to Serchon ? 

Alfred. 

Yes ; and you ? 

Stranger. 

Yes. I fear. 
Since our road is the same, that our 

journey must be 
Somewhat closer than isour acquaintance. 

You see 
How narrow the path is. I 'm tempted 

to ask 
Your permission to finish (no difficult 

task !) 
The cigar you have given me (really u 

prize !) 
In your company. 

Alfred. 

Charmed, Sir, to find your road lies 
In the way of my own inclinations ! In- 
deed 
The dream of your nation I find in this 

weed. 
In the distant savannas a talisman 

grows 
That makes all men brothers that use it 

. . . who knows ? 
That blaze which erewhile from the Boule- 

vart outbroke. 
It has ended wh^j-e wisdom begins. Sir, 

— in smoke. 
Messieurs Lopez (whateveryour publicists 

write) 
Have done more in their way human 

kind to unite, 
Perchance, than ten Proudhons. 

Stranger. 
Yes. Ah, what a scene ! 



24 



LUCILE. 



Alfred. 

Humph ! Nature is here too pretentious. 
Her mien 

Is too haughty. One likes to be coaxed, 
not compelled, 

To the notice such beauty resents if with- 
held. 

She seems to be saying too plainly, 
"Admire me ! " 

And I answer, "Yes, madam, I do : but 
you tire me." 

Stranger. 
That sunset, just now though . . . 

Alfred. 

A very old trick ! 
One would think that the sun by this 

time must be sick 
Of blushing at what, by this time, he 

must know 
Too well to be shocked by — this world. 

Stranger, 

Ah, 't is so 
With us all. 'T is the sinner that best 

knew the world 
At twenty, whose lip is, at sixty, most 

curled 
With disdain of its follies. You stay at 
Serchon ? 

Alfred. 
A day or two only. 

Stranger. 

The season is done. 

Alfred. 
Already? 

Stranger, 

'T was shorter. this year than the last. 
Folly soon wears her shoes out. She 

dances so fast. 
We are all of us tired, 

Alfred. 
You know the place well ? 

Stranger, 
I have been there two seasons. 

Alfred. 

Pray who is the Belle 
Of the Baths at this moment ? 



Stranger. 

The same who has been 
The belle of all places in which she is 

seen ; 
The belle of all Paris last winter ; last 

spring 
The belle of all Baden. 

Alfred. 

An uncommon thing ! 

Stranger. 
Sir, an uncommon beauty ! . . . I rather 

should say, 
An uncommon character. Truly, each 

day 
One meets women whose beauty is equal 

to hers, 
But none with the charm of Lucile de 

Nevers. 

Alfred. 
Madame de Nevers ? 

Stranger, 

Do you know her ? 

Alfred. 

I know, 
Or, rather, I knew her — a long time 

ago. 
I almost forget . . . 

Stranger, 

What a wit ! what a grace 
In her language ! her movements ! what 

play in her face ! 
And yet what a sadness she seems to 
conceal ! 

Alfred. 
You speak like a lover. 

Stranger. 

I speak as I feel. 
But not like a lover. What interests 

me so 
In Lucile, at the same time forbids me, 

I know. 
To give to that interest, whate'er the 

sensation, 
The name we men give to an hour's 

admiration, 
A night's passing passion, an actress's 

eyes, 
A dancing girl's ankles, a fine lady's 

sighs. 



LUCILE. 



25 



Alfred. 
Yes, I quite comprehend. But this 

sadness — this shade 
Which you speak of ? ... it almost would 

make me afraid 
Your gay countrymen, Sir, less adroit 

must have grown, 
Since when, as a stripling, at Paris, I 

own 
I found in them terrible rivals, — if yet 
They have all lacked the skill to console 

this regret 
(If regret be the word I should use), or 

fulfil 
This desire (if desire be the word), which 

seems still 
To endure unappeased. For I take it 

for granted, 
From all that you say, that the will was 

not wanted. 



Tlie stranger replied, not without irrita- 
tion : 

"I have heard that an Englishman — 
one of your nation, 

I presume — and if so, I must beg you, 
indeed, 

To excuse the contempt which I . . ." 

Alfked. 

Pray, Sir, proceed 
With your tale. My compatriot, what 
was his crime ? 

Stranger. 

0, nothing ! His folly was not so sub- 
lime 

As to merit that term. If I blamed him 
just now, 

It was not for the sin, but the silliness. 



Alfred. 



How? 

, lad- 



Stranger. 
I own I hate Botany. Still, 

mit. 

Although I myself have no passion for it. 
And do not understand, yet I cannot 

despise 
The cold man of science, who walks with 

. his eyes 
All alert through a garden of flowers, 

and strips 
The lilies' gold tongues, and the roses' 

red lips, 



With a ruthless dissection ; since he, I 
suppose, 

Has some purpose beyond the mere mis- 
chief he does. 

But the stupid and mischievous boy, 
that uproots 

The exotics, and tramples the tender 
young shoots, 

For a boy's brutal pastime, and only be- 
cause 

He knows no distinction 'twixt hearts- 
ease and haws, — 

One would wish, for the sake of each 
nursling so nipped 

To catch the young rascal and have him 
well whipped ! 

Alfred. 

Some compatriot of mine, do I then un- 
derstand. 

With a cold Northern heart, and a rude 
English hand. 

Has injured your Rosebud of France ? 

Stranger. 

Sir, I know. 
But little, or nothing. Yet some faces 

show 
The last act of a tragedy in their regard : 
Though the first scenes be wanting, it 

yet is not hard 
To divine, more or less, what the plot 

may have been. 
And what sort of actors have passed o'er 

the scene. 
And whenever I gaze on the face of 

Lucile, 
With its pensive and passionless lan- 
guor, I feel 
That some feeling hath burnt there . . . 

burnt out, and burnt up 
Health and hope. So you feel when you 

gaze down the cup 
Of extinguished volcanoes : you judge 

of the fire 
Once there, by the ravage you see ; — 

the desire, 
By the apathy left in its wake, and that 

sense 
Of a moral, immovable, mute impotence. 

Alfred. 

Humph ! ... I see you have finished, at 

last, your cigar. 
Can I off"er another ? 



26 



LUCILE. 



Stranger. 

No, thank you. 
Not two miles from Serchon. 



We are 



Alfred. 
You know the road well ? 

Stranger. 
I have often been over it. 

XVI. 

Here a pause fell 

On their converse. Still musingly on, 
side by side. 

In the moonlight, the two men contin- 
ued to ride 

Down the dim mountain pathway. But 
each, for the rest 

Of their journey, although they still rode 
on abreast, 

Continued to follow in silence the train 

Of the different feelings that haunted 
his brain ; 

And each, as though roused from a deep 
revery. 

Almost shouted, descending the moun- 
tain, to see 

Burst at once on the moonlight the sil- 
very Baths, 

The long lime-tree alley, the dark gleam- 
ing paths. 

With the lamps twinkling through them 
— the quaint wooden roofs — 

The little white houses. 

The clatter of hoofs. 

And the music of wandering bands, up 
the walls 

Of the steep hanging hill, at remote in- 
tervals 

Reached them, crossed by the sound of 
the clacking of whips, 

And here and there, faintly, through 
serpentine slips 

Of verdant rose-gardens, deep-sheltered 
with screens 

Of airy acacias and dark evergreens. 

They could mark the Avhite dresses, and 
catch the light songs. 

Of the lovely Parisians that wandered in 
throngs. 

Led by Laughter and Love through the 
cold eventide 

Down the dream-haunted valley, or up 
the hillside. 



XVII. 

At length, at the door of the inn I'He- 

EISSON, 

(Pray go there, if ever you go to Ser- 
chon !) 

The two horsemen, well pleased to have 
reached it, alighted 

And exchanged their last greetings. 

The Frenchman invited 

Lord Alfred to dinner. Lord Alfred de- 
clined. 

He had letters to write, and felt tired. 
So he dined 

In his own rooms that night. 

With an unquiet eye 

He watched his companion depart ; nor 
knew why. 

Beyond all accountable reason or meas- 
ure. 

He felt in his breast such a sovran dis- 
pleasure. 

"The fellow's good-looking," he mur- 
mured at last, 

"And yet not a coxcomb." Some ghost 
of the past 

Vexed him still. . 

"If he love her," he thought, "let 
him win her." 

Then he turned to the future — and or- 
dered his dinner. 

XVIII. 

O hour of all hours, the most blessed 

upon earth. 
Blessed hour of our dinners ! 

The land of his birth ; 
The face of his first love ; the bills that 

he owes ; 
The twaddle of friends and the venom of 

foes ; 
The sermon he heard when to church he 

last went ; 
The money he borrowed, the money he 

spent ; — 
All of these things a man, I believe, may 

forget. 
And not be the worse for forgetting; 

but yet 
Never, never, never ! earth's luckiest 

sinner 
Hath unpunished forgotten the hour of 

his dinner ! 
Indigestion, that conscience of every 

bad stomach, 
Shall relentlessly gnaw and pursue him 

with some ache 



LUCILE. 



27 



Or some pain ; and trou'ble, remorseless, 

his best ease, 
As the Furies once troubled the sleep of 

Orestes. / 



We may live without poetry, music, and 
art ; 

"We may live without conscience, and 
live without heart ; 

We may live without friends ; we may 
live without books ; 

But civilized man cannot live without 
cooks. 

He may live without books, — what is 
knowledge but grieving ? 

He may live without hope, — what is 
hope but deceiving ? 

He may live without love, — what is pas- 
sion but pining ? 

But where is the man that can live with- 
out dining ? 



Lord Alfred found, waiting his coming, 

a note 
From Lucile. 

" Your last letter has reached me," she 

wrote. 
"This evening, alas ! I must go to the 

ball, 
And shall not be at home till too late 

for your call ; 
But to-morrow, at any rate, sails faute, 

at One 
You will find me at home, and will find 

me alone. 
Meanwhile, let me thank you sincerely, 

milord. 
For the honor with which you adhere to 

your word. 
Yes, I thank you. Lord Alfred ! To- 
morrow, then. 

"L." 

XXI. 

I find myself terribly puzzled to tell 
The feelings with which Alfred Vargrave 

flung down 
This note, as he poured out his wine. I 

must own 
That I think he himself could have 

hardly explained 
Those feelings exactly. 

" Yes, yes," as he drained 
The glass down, he muttered, "Jack's 

right, after all. 
The coquette ! " 



"Does milord mean to go to the 
ball?" 
Asked the waiter, who lingered. 

"Perhaps. I don't know. 
You may keep me a ticket, in case I 
should go." 



0, better, no doubt, is a dinner of herbs. 
When seasoned by love, which no rancor 

disturbs, 
And sweetened by all that is sweetest in 

life, 
Thau turbot, bisque, ortolans, eaten in 

strife ! 
But if, out of humor, and hungry, alone, 
A man should sit down to a dinner, each 

one 
Of the dishes of which the cook chooses 

to spoil 
With a horrible mixture of garlic and 

oil, 
The chances are ten against one, I must 

own. 
He gets up as ill-tempered as when he 

sat down. 
And if any reader this fact to dispute is 
Disposed, I say. . . "Allium edat cicutis 
Nocentius ! " 

Over the fruit and the wine 
Undisturbed the wasp settled. The even- 
ing was fine. 
Lord Alfred his chair by the window had 

set, 
And languidly lighted his small cigar- 
ette. 
The window was open. The warm air 

without 
Waved the flame of the candles. The 

moths were about. 
In the gloom he sat gloomy. 



Gay sounds from below 
Floated up like faint echoes of joys long 

ago. 
And night deepened apace ; through the 

dark avenues 
The lamps twinkled bright ; and by 

threes, and by twos. 
The idlers of Serchon were strolling at 

will, 
As Lord Alfred could see from the cool 

window-sill, 
Where his gaze, as he languidly turned 

it, fell o'er 



28 



LUCILE. 



His late travelling companion, now pass- 
ing before 
The inn, at the window of which he still 

sat, 
In full toilet, — boots varnished, and 

snowy cravat, 
Gayly smoothing and buttoning a yellow 

kid glove, 
As he turned down the avenue. 

Watching above. 
From his window, the stranger, who 

stopped as he walked 
To mix with those groups, and now 

nodded, now talked, 
To the young Paris dandies. Lord Alfred 

discerned. 
By the way hats were lifted, and glances 

were turned. 
That this unknown acquaintance, now 

bound for the ball. 
Was a person of rank or of fashion ; for 

all 
Whom he bowed to in passing, or stopped 

with and chattered. 
Walked on with a look which implied 

... " I feel flattered ! " 



His form was soon lost in the distance 
and gloom. 



Lord Alfred still sat by himself in his 

room. 
He had finished, one after the other, a 

dozen 
Or more cigarettes. He had thought of 

his cousin : 
He had thought of Matilda, and thought 

of Lucile : 
He had thought about many things : 

thought a great deal 
Of himself : of his past life, his future, 

his present : 
He had thought of the moon, neither 

full moon nor crescent : 
Of the gay world, so sad ! life, so sweet 

and so sour ! 
He had thought, too, of glory, and for- 
tune, and power : 
Thought of love, and the country, and 

sympathy, and 
A poet's asylum in some distant land : 
Thought of man in the abstract, and 

woman, no doubt, 



In particular ; also he had thought much 

about 
His digestion, his debts, and his dinner ; 

and last. 
He thought that the night would be 

stupidly passed, 
If he thought any more of such matters 

at all : 
So he rose, and resolved to set out for the 

ball. 

XXVI. 

I believe, ere he finished his tardy toilet. 
That Lord Alfred had spoiled, and flung 

by in a pet, 
Half a dozen white neckcloths, and 

looked for the nonce 
Twenty times in the glass, if he looked 

in it once. 
I believe that he split up, in drawing 

them on. 
Three pair of pale lavender gloves, one 

by one. 
And this is the reason, no doubt, that 

at last, 
When he reached the Casino, although 

he walked fast. 
He heard, as he hurriedly entered the 

door, 
The church-clock strike Twelve. 

XXVII. 

The last waltz was just o'er. 

The chaperons and dancers were all in a 
flutter. 

A crowd blocked the door : and a buzz 
and a mutter 

Went about in the room as a young man, 
whose face 

Lord Alfred had seen ere he entei-ed that 
place, 

But a few hours ago, through the per- 
fumed and warm 

Flowery porch, with a lady that leaned 
on his arm 

Like a queen in a fable of old fairy days. 

Left the ballroom. 



The hubbub of comment and praise 
Eeached Lord Alfred as just then he 
entered. 

"3fafoi!" 
Said a Frenchman beside him, . . . 

' ' That lucky Luvois 
Has obtained all the gifts of the gods 
. . . rank and wealth, 



LUCILE. 



29 



And good looks, and then such inex- 
haustible health ! 
He that hath shall have more ; and this 

truth, I surmise. 
Is the cause why, to-night, by the beauti- 
ful eyes 
Of ?05 clmrm ante I/ucile more distinguished 

than all, 
He so gayly goes off with the belle of 

the ball." 
"Is it true," asked a lady, aggressively 

fat, 
Who, herce as a female Leviathan, sat 
By another that looked like a needle, all 

steel 
And tenuity. — " Luvois will marry Lu- 

cile ? ^ 
The needle seemed jerked by a virulent 

twitch. 
As though it were bent upon driving a 

stitch 
Through somebody's character. 

"Madam," replied, 
Interposing, a young man who sat by 

their side. 
And was languidly fanning his face with 

his hat, 
" I am ready to bet my new Tilbury that, 
If Luvois has proposed, the Comtesse 

has refused." 
The fat and thin ladies were highly amused. 
"Refused! , . , what! a young Duke, 

not thirty, my dear. 
With at least half a million (what is it ?) 

a year ! " 
"That maybe," said the third; "yet 

I know some time since 
Castelmar was refused, though as rich, 

and a Prince. 
But Luvois, who was never before in his 

life 
In love with a woman who was not a 

wife. 
Is now certainly serious." 



Recommenced. 



XXIX. 

The music once more 



Said Lord Alfred, ' ' This ball is a bore ! " 
And returned to the inn, somewhat worse 
than before. 

XXXT. 

There, whilst musing he leaned the dark 
valley above, 



Through the warm land were wandering 

the spirits of love. 
A soft breeze in the white window drap- 
ery stirred ; 
In the blossomed acacia the lone cricket 

chirred ; 
The scent of the roses fell faint o'er the 

night, 
And the moon on the mountain was 

dreaming in light. 
Repose, and yet rapture! that pensive 

wild nature 
Impregnate with passion in each breath- 
ing feature ! 
A stone's-throw from thence, through th«>a 

large lime-trees peeped. 
In a garden of roses, a white chi^jlter 

steeped 
In the moonbeams. The windows .1 that 

down to the lawn ; 
The casements were open ; the cr adroit 

were drawn ; 
Lights streamed from the insid ile they 

with them the sound 
Of music and song. In the gardeon- 

around 
A table with fruits, wine, tea, ices, there 

set. 
Half a dozen young men and young 

women were met. 
Light, laughter, and voices, and music, 

all streamed 
Through the quiet-leaved limes. At the 

window there seemed 
For one moment the outline, familiar 

and fair, 
Of a white dress, a white neck, and soft 

dusky hair, 
Which Lord Alfred remembered ... a 

moment or so 
It hovered, then passed into shadow ; 

and slow 
The soft notes, from a tender piano up- 
flung, 
Floated forth, and a voice unforgotten 

thus sung : 

" Hear a song that was born in the land 
of my birth ! 
The anchors are lifted, the fair ship 
is free, 
And the shout of the mariners floats 
in its mirth 
'Twixt the light in the sky and the 
light on the sea. 

"And this ship is a world. She 13 
freighted with souls. 



80 



LUCILE. 



She is freighted with merchandise : 

proudly she sails 
"With the Labor that stores, and the 

Will that controls 
The gold in the ingots, the silk in 

the bales. 

"From the gardens of Pleasure, where 
reddens the rose, 
And the scent of the cedar is faint 
on the air. 
Past the harbors of Traffic, sublimely 
she goes, 
Man's hopes o'er the world of the 
qi waters to bear ! 

Where the cheer from the harbors of 
By tl Traffic is heard, 

Where the gardens of Pleasure fade 
That 1 fast on the sight, 

- the rose, o'er the cedar, there 
Was a p passes a bird ; 

aJis the Paradise Bird, never known 
Whom 1- to alight. 

W And that bird, bright and bold as a 
Poet's desire, 
Eoams her own native heavens, the 
realms of her birth. 
There she soars like a seraph, she 
shines like a fire, 
And her plumage hath never been 
sullied by earth. 

*' And the mariners greet her ; there 's 
song on each lip, 
For that bird of good omen, and joy 
in each eye. 
And the ship and the bird, and the 
bird and the ship, 
Together go forth over ocean and 
sky. 

" Fast, fast fades the land ! far the rose- 
gardens flee, 
And far fleet the harbors. In re- 
gions unknown 
The ship is alone on a desert of sea, 
And the bird in a desert of sky is 
alone. 

**In those regions unknown, o'er that 
desert of air, 
Down that desert of waters — tre- 
mendous in wrath — 
The storm-wind Euroclydon leaps from 
his lair. 
And cleaves, through the waves of 
the ocean, his path. 



"And the bird in the cloud, and the 
ship on the wave, 
Overtaken, are beaten about by wild 
gales : 
And the mariners all rush their cargo 
to save, 
Of the gold in the ingots, the silk 
in the bales. 

*' Lo ! a wonder, which never before 
hath been heard, 
For it never before hath been given 
to sight ; 
On the ship hath descended the Para- 
dise Bird, 
The Paradise Bird, never known to 
alight ! 

" The bird which the mariners blessed, 
when each lip 
Had a song for the omen that glad- 
dened each eye ; 
The bright bird for shelter hath flown 
to the ship 
From the wrath on the sea and the 
wrath in the sky. 

" But the mariners heed not the bird 
any more. 
They are felling the masts, — they 
are cutting the sails ; 
Some are working, some weeping, and 
some wrangling o'er 
Their gold in the ingots, their silk 
in the bales. 

" Souls of men are on board ; wealth of 
man in the hold ; 
And the storm-wind Euroclydon 
sweeps to his prey ; 
And who heeds the bird ? * Save the 
silk and the gold ! ' 
And the bird from her shelter the 
gust sweeps away ! 

" Poor Paradise Bird ! on her lone flight 
once more 
Back again in the wake of the wind 
she is driven, — 
To be 'whelmed in the storm, or above 
it to soar. 
And, if rescued from ocean, to van- 
ish in heaven ! 

"And the ship rides the waters, and 
weathers the gales : 
From the haven she nears the re- 
joicing is heard. 



LUCILE. 



31 



All hands are at work on the ingots, 
the bales, 
Save a child, sitting lonely, who 
misses — the Bird ! " 



CANTO III. 



"With stout iron shoes be my Pegasus 

shod ! 
For my road is a rough one : flint, stub- 
ble, and clod. 
Blue clay, and black quagmire, brambles 

no fgw, 
And I gallop up-hill, now. 

There 's terror that 's true 
In that tale of a youth who, one night 

at a revel. 
Amidst music and mirth lured and wiled 

by some devil. 
Followed ever one mask through the mad 

masquerade, 
Till, pursued to some chamber deserted 

('t is said), 
He unmasked, with a kiss, the strange 

lady, and stood 
Face to face with a Thing not of flesh nor 

of blood. 
In this Masque of the Passions, called 

Life, there 's no human 
Emotion, though masked, or in man or 

in woman. 
But, when faced and unmasked, it will 

leave us at last 
Struck by some supernatural aspect 

aghast. 
For truth is appalling and eldrich, as seen 
By this world's artificial lamplights, and 

we screen 
From our sight the strange vision that 

troubles our life. 
Alas ! why is Genius forever at strife 
With the world, which, despite the 

world's self, it ennobles ? 
Why is it that Genius perplexes and 

troubles 
And offends the efiete life it comes to 

renew ? 
'T is the terror of truth ! 't is that Gen- 
ius is true ! 



Lucile de Nevers (if her riddle I read) 
Was a woman of genius : whose genius, 
indeed, 



With her life was at war. Once, but 

once, in that life 
The chance had been hers to escape from 

this strife 
In herself ; finding peace in the life of 

another 
From the passionate wants she, in hers, 

failed to smother. 
But the chance fell too soon, when the 

crude restless power 
Which had been to her nature so fatal a 

dower. 
Only wearied the man it "yet haunted 

and thralled ; 
And that moment, once lost, had been 

never recalled. 
Yet it left her heart sore : and, to shelter 

her heart 
From approach, she then sought, in that 

delicate art 
Of concealment, those thousand adroit 

strategies 
Of feminine wit, which repel while they 

please, 
A weapon, at once, and a shield, to con- 
ceal 
And defend all that women can earnestly 

feel. 
Thus, striving her instincts to hide and 

repress. 
She felt frightened at times by her very 

success : 
She pined for the hill-tops, the clouds, 

and the stars : 
Golden wires may annoy us as much as 

steel bars 
If they keep us behind prison-windows : 

impassioned 
Her heart rose and burst the light cage 

she had fashioned 
Out of glittering trifles around it. 

Unknown 
To herself, all her instincts, without 

hesitation. 
Embraced the idea of self-immolation. 
The strong spirit in her, had her life 

but been blended 
With some man's whose heart had her 

own comprehended. 
All its wealth at his feet would have 

lavishly thrown. 
For him she had struggled and striven 

alone ; 
For him had aspired ; in him had trans. 

fused 
All the gladness and grace of her nature • 

and used 



32 



LUCILE. 



For him only the spells of its delicate 

power : 
Like the ministering fairy that brings 

from her bower 
To some mage all the treasures, whose 

use the fond elf, 
More enriched by her love, disregards 

for herself. 
But standing apart, as she ever had done, 
And her genius, which needed a vent, 

iinding none 
In the broad fields of action thrown wide 

to man's power, 
She unconsciously made it her bulwark 

and tower, 
And built in it her refuge, whence lightly 

she hurled 
Her contempt at the fashions and forms 

of the world. 

And the permanent cause why she now 
missed and failed 

That firm hold upon life she so keenly 
assailed, 

"Was, in all those diurnal occasions that 
place 

Say — the world and the woman opposed 
face to face, 

"Where the woman must yield, she, re- 
fusing to stir, 

Offended the world, which in turn 
wounded her. 

As before, in the old-fashioned manner, 

_ Ifit 
To this character, also, its moral : to wit, 
Say — the world is a nettle ; disturb it, 

it stings : 
Grasp it firmly, it stings not. On one 

of two things. 
If you M^ould not be stung, it behooves 
, J _ you to settle : 

I ' Avoid it, or crush it. She crushed not 
' the nettle ; 

For she could not ; nor would she avoid 

it : she tried 
With the weak hand of woman to thrust 

it aside. 
And it stung her. A woman is too 

slight a thing 
To trample the world without feeling its 
sting. 

III. 
One lodges but simply at Serchon ; yet, 

thanks 
To the season that changes forever the 
banks 



Of the blossoming mountains, and shifts 

the light cloud 
O'^er the valley, and hushes or rouses the 

loud 
"Wind that wails in the pines, or creeps 

murmuring down 
The dark evergreen slopes to the slum- 
bering town. 
And the torrent- that falls, faintly heard 

from afar, 
And the bluebells that purple the dap- 

pie -gray scaur. 
One sees with each month of the many- 
faced year 
A thousand sweet changes of beauty 

appear. 
The chalet where dwelt the Comtesse de 

Nevers 
Rested half up the base of a mountain 

of firs. 
In a garden of roses, revealed to the road. 
Yet withdrawn from its noise : 't was a 

peaceful abode. 
And the walls, and the roofs, with their 

gables like hoods 
"Which the monks wear, were built of 

sweet resinous woods. 
The sunlight of noon, as Lord Alfred 

ascended 
The steep garden paths, every odor had 

blended 
Of the ardent carnations, and faint helio- 
tropes, 
"With the balms floated down from the 

dark wooded slopes : 
A light breeze at the windows was playing 

about. 
And the white curtains floated, now in 

and now out. 
The house was all hushed when he rang 

at the door, 
"Which was opened to him in a moment, 

or more. 
By an old nodding negress, whose sable 

head shined 
In the sun like a cocoa-nut polished in 

Ind, 
'ISTeath the snowy foulard which about 
it was wound, 

IV. 

Lord Alfred sprang forward at once, with 

a bound. 
He remembered the nurse of Lucile. 

The old dame, 
"Whose teeth and whose eyes used to 

beam when he came. 



LUCILE. 



33 



With a boy's eager step, in the Hithe 

days of yore, 
To pass, unannounced, her young mis- 
tress's door. 
The old woman had fondled Lucile on 

her knee 
When she left, as an infant, far over the 

sea. 
In India, the tomb of a mother, un- 
known. 
To pine, a pale floweret, in great Paris 

town. 
She had soothed the child's sobs on her 

breast, when she read 
The letter that told her her father was 

dea^. 
An astute, shrewd adventurer, who, like 

Ulysses, 
Had studied men, cities, laws, wars, the 

abysses 
Of statecraft, with varying fortunes, was 

he. 
He had wandered the world through, by 

land and by sea. 
And knew it in most of its phases. 

Strong will. 
Subtle tact, and soft manners, had given 

him skill 
To conciliate Fortune, and courage to 

brave 
Her displeasure. Thrice shipwrecked, 

and cast by the wave 
On his own quick resources, they rarely , 

had failed 
His command : often baffled, he ever 

prevailed, 
In his combat with fate : to-day flattered 

and fed 
By monarchs, to-morrow in search of 

mere bread. 
The off'spring of times trouble-haunted, 

he came 
Of a family ruined, yet noble in name. 
He lost sight of his fortune, at twenty, 

in France ; 
And, half statesman, half soldier, and 

wholly Free-lance, 
Had wandered in search of it, over the 

world, 
Into India. 

But scarce had the nomad unfurled 
His wandering tent at Mysore, in the 

smile 
Of a Eajah (whose court he controlled 

for a while, 
And whose council he prompted and 

governed by stealth); 
3 



Scarce, indeed, had he wedded an Indian 

of wealth. 
Who died giving birth to this daughter, 

before 
He was borne to the tomb of his wife at 

Mysore. 
His fortune, which fell to his orphan, 

perchance. 
Had secured her a home with his sister 

in France, 
A lone woman, the last of the race left. 

Lucile 
Neither felt, nor afiected, the wish to 

conceal 
The half- Eastern blood, which appeared 

to bequeath 
(Revealed now and then, though but 

rarely, beneath 
That outward repose that concealed it 

in her) 
A something half wild to her strange 

character. 
The nurse with the orphan, awhile 

broken-hearted. 
At the door of a convent in Paris had 

parted. 
But later, once more, with her mistress 

she tarried, 
When the girl, iDy that grim maiden 

aunt, had been married 
To a dreary old Count, who had sullenly 

died, 
With no claim on her tears, — she had 

wept as a bride. 
Said Lord Alfred, "Your mistress ex- 
pects me." 

The crone 
Oped the drawing-room door, and there 

left him alone. 



O'er the soft atmosphere of this temple 

of grace 
Rested silence and perfume. No soimd 

reached the place. 
In the white curtains wavered the delicate 

shade 
Of the heaving acacias, through which 

the breeze played. 
O'er the smooth wooden floor, polished 

dark as a glass, 
Fragrant white Indian matting allowed 

you to pass. 
In light olive baskets, by window and 

door. 
Some hung from the ceiling, some crowd- 
ing the floor. 



34 



LUCILE. 



Eich wild-flowers plucked by Lucile 

from the hill, 
Seemed the room with their passionate 

presence to fill : 
Blue aconite, hid in white roses, reposed ; 
The deep belladonna itsvermeil disclosed ; 
And the frail saponaire, and the tender 

bluebell. 
And the purple valerian, — each child 

of the fell 
And the solitude flourished, fed fair 

from the source 
Of waters the huntsman scarce heeds in 

his course, 
Where the chamois and izard, with deli- 
cate hoof. 
Pause or flit through the pinnacled silence 

aloof. 

VI. 

Here you felt, by the sense of its beauty 

reposed, 
That you stood in a shrine of sweet 

thoughts. Half unclosed 
In the light slept the flowers : all was 

pure and at rest ; 
All peaceful ; all modest ; all seemed self- 
possessed, 
And aware of the silence. No vestige 

nor trace 
Of a young woman's coquetry troubled 

the place. 
He stood by the window. A cloud 

passed the sun. 
A light breeze uplifted the leaves, one 

by one. 
Just then Lucile entered the room, un- 

discemed 
By Lord Alfred, whose face to the win- 
dow was turned, 
In a strange revery. 

The time was, when Lucile, 
In beholding that man, could not help 

but reveal 
The rapture, the fear, which wrenched 

out every nerve 
In the heart of the girl from the woman's 

reserve. 
And now — ■ she gazed at him, calm, 

smiling, — perchance 
Indiff"erent. 

VII. 

Indifferently turning his glance, 
Alfred Vargrave encountered that gaze 

unaware. 
O'er a bodice snow-white streamed her 

soft dusky hair ; 



A rose-bud half blown in her hand ; in 
her eyes 

A half-pensive smile. 

A sharp cry of surprise 

Escaped from his lips: some unknown 
agitation. 

An invincible trouble, a strange palpita- 
tion. 

Confused his ingenious and frivolous wit; 

Overtook, and entangled, and paralyzed 
it. 

That wit so complacent and docile, that 
ever 

Lightly came at the call of the lightest 
endeavor. 

Ready coined, and availably current as 
gold. 

Which, secure of its value, so fluently 
rolled 

In free circulation from hand on to hand 

For the usage of all, at a moment's com- 
mand ; 

For once it rebelled, it was mute and 
unstirred, 

And he looked at Lucile without speak- 
ing a word. 



Perhaps what so troubled him was, that 

the face 
On whose features he gazed had no more 

than a trace 
Of the face his remembrance had imaged 

for years. 
Yes ! the face he remembered was faded 

with tears : 
Grief had famished the figure, and dimmed 

the dark eyes, 
And stai-ved the pale lips, too acquainted 

with sighs. 
And that tender, and gracious, and fond 

coquettcrie 
Of a woman who knows her least ribbon 

to be 
Something dear to the lips that so warmly 

caress 
Every sacred detail of her exquisite 

dress, 
In the careless toilet of Lucile, — then 

too sad 
To care aught to her changeable beauty 

to add, — 
Lord Alfred had never admired before ! 
Alas ! poor Lucile, in those weak days 

of yore, 
Had neglected herself, never heeding, 

nor thinking 



LUCILK 



35 




(While the blossom and hloom of her 

beauty were shrinking) 
That sorrow can beautify only the heart — 
Not the face — of a woman ; and can 

but impart 
Its endearment to one that has suffered. 

In tmth 
Grief hath beauty for grief; but gay 

youth loves gay youth. 



The woman that now met, unshrinking, 
his gaze, 

Seemed to bask in the silent but sumptu- 
ous haze 

Of that soft second summer, more ripe 
than the first. 

Which returns when the bud to the 

; blossom hath burst 



36 



LUCILE. 



In despite of the stormiest April. Lucile 
Had acquired that matchless unconscious 



To the homage which none but a churl 

would withhold — 
That caressing and exquisite grace — 

never bold, 
Ever present — which just a few women 

possess. 
From a healthful repose, undisturbed by 

the stress 
Of unquiet emotions, her soft cheek had 

drawn 
A freshness as pure as the twilight of 

dawn. 
Her figure, though slight, had revived 

everywhere 
The luxurious proportions of youth ; and 

her hair — 
Once shorn as an offering to passionate 

love — 
Now floated or rested redundant above 
Her airy pure forehead and throat ; 

gathered loose 
Under which, by one violet knot, the 

profuse 
Milk-white folds of a cool modest gar- 
ment reposed. 
Rippled faint by the breast they half 

hid, half disclosed. 
And her simple attire thus in all things 

revealed 
The fine art which so artfully all things 

concealed. 



Lord Alfred, who never conceived that 
Lucile 

Could have looked so enchanting, felt 
tempted to kneel 

At her feet, and her pardon with passion 
implore ; 

But the calm smile that met him sufficed 
to restore 

The pride and the bitterness needed to 
meet 

The occasion with dignity due and dis- 
creet. 

XI. 

" Madam," — thus he began with a voice 

reassured, — 
" You see that your latest command bas 

secured 
My immediate obedience, — presuming I 

may 
Consider my freedom restored from this 

day." — 



"I had thought," said Lucile, with a 
smile gay yet sad, 

" That your freedom from me not a fetter 
has had. 

Indeed ! ... in my chains have you 
rested till now ? 

I had not so flattered myself, I avow ! " 

"For Heaven's sake, Madam," Lord 
Alfred replied, 

" Do not jest ! has the moment no sad- 
ness ? " he sighed. 

;"Tis an ancient tradition," she an- 
swered, "a tale 

Often told, — a position too sure to pre- 
vail 

In the end of all legends of love. If we 
wrote. 

When we first love, foreseeing that hour 
yet remote. 

Wherein of necessity each would recall 

From the other the poor foolish records 
of all 

Those emotions, whose pain, when re- 
corded, seemed bliss, 

Should we write as we wrote ? But one 
thinks not of this ! 

At Twenty (who does not at Twenty ?) 
we write 

Believing eternal the frail vows we 
plight ; 

And we smile with a confident pitj'', 
above 

The vulgar results of all poor human 
love : 

For we deem, with that vanity common 
to youth. 

Because what we feel in our bosoms, in 
truth. 

Is novel to us — that 't is novel to earth, 

And will prove the exception, in dui'ance 
and worth, 

To the great law to which all on earth 
must incline. 

The error was noble, the vanity fine ! 

ShaU we blame it because we survive it ? 
ah, no ; 

'T was the youth of our youth, my lord, 
is it not so ? " 



Lord Alfred was mnte. He remembered 
her yet 

A child, — the weak sport of each mo- 
ment's regret. 

Blindly yielding herself to the errors of 
life. 



LUCILE. 



37 



The deceptions of youth, and borne down 
by the strii'e 

And the tumult of passion ; the tremu- 
lous toy 

Of each transient emotion of grief or of 

joy- 
But to watch her pronounce the death- 
warrant of all 
The illusions of life, — lift, unflinching, 

the pall 
From the bier of the dead Past, — that 

woman so fair, 
And so young, yet her own self-survivor ; 

who there 
Traced her life's epitaph with a finger so 

cold !, 
'T was a picture that pained his self-love 

to behold. 
He himself knew — none better — the 

things to be said 
Upon subjects like this. Yet he bowed 

doAvn his head : 
And as thus, with a trouble he could 

not command, 
He paused, crumpling the letters he held 

in his hand, 
" You know me enough," she continued, 

' ' or wh 
I would-«syis^ you yet recollect (do you 

not, 
Lord Alfred ?) enough of my nature, to 

know 
That these pledges of what was perhaps 

long ago 
A foolish alfection, I do not recall 
From those motives of prudence which 

actuate all 
Or most women when their love ceases. 

Indeed, 
If you have such a doubt, to dispel it I 

need 
But remind you that ten years these 

letters have rested 
Unreclaimed in your hands." A re- 
proach seemed suggested 
By these words. To meet it. Lord Al- 
fred looked up. 
(His gaze had been fixed on a blue Sevres 

cup 
"With a look of profound connoisseurship, 

— a smile 
Of singular interest and care, all this 

while.) 
He looked up, and looked long in the 

face of Liicile, 
To mark if that face by a sign would 

reveal 



At the thought of Miss Darcy the least 
jealous pain. 

He looked keenly and long, yet he 
looked there in vain. 

"You are generous, Madam," he mur- 
mured at last. 

And into his voice a light irony passed. 

He had looked for reproaches, and fully 
arranged 

His forces. But straightway the enemy 
changed 

The position. 

XIII. 

*' Come ! " gajdy Lucile intei-posed, 

With a smile whose divinely deep sweet- 
ness disclosed 

Some depth in her nature he never had 
known, \ 

While she tenderly laid her light hand 
on his own, 

"Do not think I abuse the occasion.^ 
We gain 

Justice, judgment, with years, or else 
years are in vain. 

From me not a single reproach can you 
hear. 

I have sinned to myself, — to the world, 
— nay, I fear 

To you chiefly. The woman who loves 
should, indeed, 

Be the friend of the man that she loves. 
She should heed 

Not her selfish and often mistaken de- 
sires, 

But his interest Avhose fate her own in- 
terest inspires ; 

And, rather than seek to allure, for her 
sake. 

His life down the turbulent, fanciful 
wake 

Of impossible destinies, use all her art 

That his place in the world find its place 
in her heart. 

I, alas ! — I perceived not this truth till 
too late ; 

I tormented your youth, I have darkened 
}'our fate. 

Forgive me the ill I have done for the 
sake 

Of its long expiation ! " 

XIV. 

Lord Alfred, awake, 
Seemed to wander from dream on to 

dream. In that seat 
Where he sat as a criminal, ready to 

meet 



38 



LUCILE. 



His accuser, he found himself turned by 
some change, 

As surprising and all unexpected as 
strange, 

To the judge from whose mercy indul- 
gence was sought. 

All the world's foolish pride in that mo- 
ment was naught ; 

He felt all his plausible theories posed ; 

And, thrilled by the beauty of nature 
disclosed 

In the pathos of all he had witnessed, 
his head 

He bowed, and faint words self-reproach- 
fully said. 

As he lifted her hand to his lips. 'T was 
a hand 

White, delicate, dimpled, warm, lan- 
guid, and bland. 

The hand of a woman is often, in youth. 

Somewhat rough, somewhat red, some- 
what graceless, in truth ; 

Does its beauty refine, as its pulses grow 
calm. 

Or as Sorrow has crossed the life-line in 
the palm ? 



The more that he looked, that he listened, 
the more 

He discovered perfections unnoticed be- 
fore. 

Less salient than once, less poetic, per- 
chance, 

This woman who thus had survived the 
romance 

That had made him its hero, and breathed 
him its sighs, 

Seemed more charming a thousand times 
o'er to his eyes. 

Together they talked of the years since 
when last 

They parted, contrasting the present, the 
past. 

Yet no memory marred their light con- 
verse. Lucile 

Questioned much, with the interest a 
sister might feel. 

Of Lord Alfred's new life, — of Miss 
Darcy, — her face. 

Her temper, accomplishments, — pausing 
to trace 

The advantage derived from a hymen so fit. 

Of herself, she recounted with humor 
and wit 

Her journeys, her daily employments, 
ths lands 



She had seen, and the books she had 

read, and the hands 
She had shaken. 

In all that she said there appeared 
An amiable irony. Laughing, she reared 
The temple of reason, with ever a touch 
Of light scorn at her work, revealed only 

so much 
As there gleams, in the thyrsus that 

Bacchanals bear. 
Through the blooms of a garland the 

point of a spear. 
But above, and beneath, and beyond all 

of this. 
To that soul, whose experience had par- 
alyzed bliss, 
A benignant indulgence, to all things 

resigned, 
A justice, a sweetness, a meekness of 

mind. 
Gave a luminous beauty, as tender and 

faint 
And serene as the halo encircling a saint. 



Unobserved by Lord Alfred the time 
fleeted by. 

To each novel sensation spontaneously 

He abandoned himself with that ardor 
so strange 

Which belongs to a mind grown accus- 
tomed to change. 

He sought, with well-practised and deli- 
cate art. 

To surprise from Lucile the true state 
of her heart ; 

But his efforts were vain, and the woman, 
as ever. 

More adroit than the man, baffled every 
endeavor. 

When he deemed he had touched on 
some chord in her being, 

At the touch it dissolved, and was gone. 
Ever fleeing 

As ever he near it advanced, when he 
thought 

To have seized, and proceeded to ana- 
lyze aught 

Of the moral existence, the absolute soul. 

Light as vapor the phantom escaped his 
control. 



From the hall, on a sudden, a sharp 

ring was heard. 
In the passage without a quick footstep 
there stirred. 



LUCILE. 



39 



At the door knocked the negress, and 

thrust in her head, 
"The Duke de Luvois had just entered," 

she said, 
" And insisted " — 

"The Duke!" cried Lucile (as she 
spoke 

The Duke's step, approaching, a light 

echo woke). 
" Say I do not receive till the evening. 
Explain," 

As she glanced at Lord Alfred, she 

added again, 
*' I have business of private importance." 
There came 

O'er Lord Alfred at once, at the sound 
of th'St name, 

An invincible sense of vexation. He 
turned 

To Lucile, and he fancied he faintly dis- 
cerned 

On her face au indefinite look of confu- 
sion. 

On his mind instantaneously flashed the 
conclusion. 

That his presence had caused it. 

He said, with a sneer 

Which he could not repress, ' ' Let not 
me interfere 

With the claims on your time, lady ! 
when you are free 

From more pleasant engagements, allow 
me to see 

And to wait on you later." 

The words were not said 

Ere he wished to recall them. He bit- 
terly read 

The mistake he had made in Lucile's 
flashing eye. 

Inclining her head, as in haughty reply, 

More Pfproachful perchance than all 
uttered rebuke. 

She said merely, resuming her seat, 
"Tell the Duke 

He may enter. " 

And vexed with his own words and 
hers, 

Alfred Vargrave bowed low to Lucile de 
Nevers, 

Passed the casement and entered the gar- 
den. Before 

His shadow was fled the Duke stood at 
the door. 

XVIII. 

When left to his thoughts in the garden 
alone. 



Alfred Vargrave stood, strange to him- 
self. With dull tone 
Of importance, through cities of rose and 

carnation, 
Went the bee on his business from sta- 
tion to station. 
The minute mirth of summer was shriU 

all around ; 
Its incessant small voices like stings 

seemed to sound 
On his sore angry sense. He stood 

grieving the hot 
Solid sun with his shadow, nor stirred 

from the spot. 
The last look of Lucile still bewildered, 

perplexed. 
And reproached him. The Duke's visit 

goaded and vexed. 
He had not yet given the letters. Again 
He must visit Lucile. He resolved to 

remain 
Where he was till the Duke went. In 

short, he would stay. 
Were it only to know when the Duke 

went away. 
But just as he formed this resolve, he 

perceived 
Approaching towards him, between the 

thick-leaved 
And luxuriant laurels, Luaile and the 

Duke. 
Thus surprised, his first thought was to 

seek for some nook 
Whence he might, unobserved, from the 

garden retreat. 
They had not yet seen him. The sound 

of their feet 
And their voices had warned him in 

time. They were walking 
Towards him. The Duke (a true French- 
man) was talking 
With the action of Talma. He saw at 

a glance 
That they barred the sole path to the 

gateway. No chance 
Of escape save in instant concealment ! 

Deep-dipped 
In thick foliage, an arbor stood near. 

In he slipped, 
Saved from sight, as in front of that am- 
bush they passed. 
Still conversing. Beneath a laburnum 

at last 
They paused, and sat down on a bench 

in the shade. 
So close that he could not but hear what 

they said. 



40 



LUCILE. 



XIX. 

LXJCILE. 

Duke, I scarcely conceive . . . 

Luvois. 
Ah, forgive ! . . . I desired 
So deeply to see you to-day. You retired 
So early last niglit from the ball . . . 

this whole week 
I have seen you pale, silent, preoccupied 



Speak, Lucile, and forgive me ! . . . I 

know that I am 
A rash fool — but I love you ! I love 

you, Madame, 
More than language can say ! Do not 

deem, Lucile, 
That the love I no longer have strength 

to conceal 
Is a passing caprice ! It is strange to 

my nature. 
It has made me, unknown to myself, a 

new creature. 
I implore you to sanction and save the 

new life 
"Which I lay at your feet with this 

prayer — Be my wife ; 
Stoop, and raise me ! 

Lord Alfred could scarcely restrain 
The sudden, acute pang of anger and 

pain 
"With which he had heard this. As 

though to some wind 
The leaves of the hushed windless lau- 
rels behind 
The two thus in converse were suddenly 

stirred. 
The sound half betrayed him. They 

started. He heai'd 
The low voice of Lucile ; but so faint 

was its tone 
That her answer escaped him. 

Luvois hurried on, 
As though in remonstrance with what 

had been spoken. 
** Nay, I know it, Lucile ! but your 

heart was not broken 
By the trial in which all its fibres were 

proved. 
Love, perchance, you mistrust, yet you 

need to be loved. 
You mistake your own feelings. I fear 

you mistake 
What so ill I interpret, those feelings 

which make 



"Words like these vague and feeble. 

Whatever your heart 
May have suffered of yore, this can only 

impart 
A pity profound to the love which I feel. 
Hush ! hush ! I know all. Tell me 

nothing, Lucile." 
"You know all, Duke?" she said; 

" well then, know that, in truth, 
I have learned from the rude lesson 

taught to my youth 
From my own heart to shelter my life ; 

to mistrust 
The heart of another. We are what we 

must. 
And not what we would be. I know 

that one hour 
Assures not another. The will and the 

power 
Are diverse." 

"0 madam!" he answered, "you 

fence 
With a feeling you know to be true and 

intense. 
'T is not my life, Lucile, that I plead for 

alone : 
If your nature I know, 't is no less for 

your own. 
That nature will prey on itself ; it was 

made 
To influence others. Consider," he said, 
' ' That genius craves power, — what scope 

for it here ? 
Gifts less noble to me give command of 

that sphere 
In which genius is power. Such gifts 

you despise ? 
But you do not disdain what such gifts 

realize ! 
I offer you. Lady, a name not unknown — 
A fortune which worthless, without you, 

is grown — 
All my life at your feet I lay down — at 

your feet 
A heart which for you, and you only, 

can beat." 

Ltjcile. 

That heart, Duke, that life — I respect 

both. The name 
And position you offer, and all that you 

claim 
In behalf of their nobler employment, I 

feel 
To deserve what, in turn, I now ask 

you — 



LUCILE. 



41 



Luvois. 

Lucile ! 

LXJCILE. 

I ask you to leave me — 

Ltjvois. 

You do not reject ? 

Lttcile. 
I ask you to leave me the time to reflect. 



You ask me ? - 



Lirvois. 

LiTCILB. 

— The time to reflect. 



Ltjvois. 

Say — One word ! 
May I hope ? 

The reply of Lucile was not heard 
By Lord Alfred ; for just then she rose, 

and moved on. 
The Duke bowed his lips o'er her hand, 
and was gone. 



Not a sound save the birds in the bushes. 
And when 

Alfred Vargrave reeled forth to the sun- 
light again, 

He just saw the white robe of the woman 
recede 

As she entered the house. 

Scarcely conscious indeed 

Of his steps, he too followed, and en- 
tered. 

XXI. 

He entered 
Unnoticed ; Lucile never stirred : so 

concentred 
And wholly absorbed in her thoughts 

she appeared. 
Her back to the window was turned. 

As he n eared 
The sofa, her face from the glass was 

reflected. 
Her dark eyes were fixed on the ground. 

Pale, dejected, 
And lost in profound meditation she 

seemed. 
Softly, silently, over her drooped shoul- 
ders streamed 



The afternoon sunlight. The cry of 

alarm 
And surprise which escaped her, as now 

on her arm 
Alfred Vargrave let fall a hand icily 

cold 
And clammy as death, all too cruelly 

told 
How far he had been from her thoughts. 

XXIX. 

All his cheek 
"Was disturbed with the effort it cost him 

to speak. 
"It was not my fault. I have heard 

all," he said. 
' ' Now the letters — and farewell, Lucile ! 

When you wed 
May — " 

The sentence broke short, like a 

weapon that snaps 
When the weight of a man is upon it. 

"Perhaps," 
Said Lucile (her sole answer revealed in 

the flush 
Of quick color which up to her brows 

seemed to rush 
In reply to those few broken words), 

" this farewell 
Is our last, Alfred Yargrave, in life. 

Who can tell ? 
Let us part without bitterness. Here 

are your letters. 
Be assured I retain you no more in my 

fetters ! " — 
She laughed, as she said this, a little 

sad laugh, 
And stretched out her hand with the 

letters. And half 
Wroth to feel his wrath rise, and unable 

to trust 
His own powers of restraint, in his bosom 

he thrust 
The packet she gave, with a short angry 

sigh. 
Bowed his head, and departed without a 

reply. 

XXIII. 

And Lucile was alone. And the men 

of the world 
Were gone back to the world. And the 

world's self was furled 
Far away from the heart of the woman. 

Her hand 
Drooped, and from it, unloosed from 

their frail silken band, 



42 



LUCILE. 



Fell those early love-letters, strewn, 
scattered, and shed 

At her feet — life's lost blossoms ! De- 
jected, her head 

On her bosom was bowed. Her gaze 
vaguely strayed o'er 

Those strewn records of passionate mo- 
ments no more. 

From each page to her sight leapt some 
word that belied 

The composure with which she that day 
had denied 

Every claim on her heart to those poor 
perished years. 

They avenged themselves now, and she 
burst into tears. 



CANTO IV. 



Letter from Cousin John to CorsiN 
Alfred. 

" BiGORKE, Thursday. 
" Time up, you rascal ! Come back, or 

be hanged. 
Matilda grows peevish. Her mother 

harangued 
For a whole hour this morning about 

you. The deuce ! 
What on earth can I say to you ? — 

Nothing 's of use. 
And the blame of the whole of your 

shocking behavior 
Falls on me, sir ! Come back, — do you 

hear ? — or I leave your 
Affairs, and abjure you forever. Come 

back 
To your anxious betrothed ; and per- 
plexed 

"Cousin Jack." 



Alfred needed, in truth, no entreaties 
from John 

To increase his impatience to fly from 
Serchon. 

All the place was now fraught with sen- 
sations of pain 

Which, whilst in it, he strove to escape 
from in vain. 

A wild instinct warned him to fly from 
a place 

Where he felt that some fatal event, 
swift of pace, 



Was approaching his life. In despite 

his endeavor 
To think of Matilda, her image forever 
Was effaced from his fancy by that of 

Lucile. 
From the ground which he stood on he 

felt himself reel. 
Scared, alarmed by those feelings to 

which, on the day 
Just before, all his heart had so soon 

given way. 
When he caught, with a strange sense 

of fear, for assistance. 
At what was, till then, the great fact in 

existence, 
'T was a phantom he grasped. 



Having sent for his guide, 

He ordered his horse, and determined to 
ride 

Back forthwith to Bigorre. 

Then, the guide, who well knew 

Every haunt of those hills, said the wild 
lake of Oo 

Lay a league from Serchon ; and sug- 
gested a track 

By the lake to Bigorre, which, transvers- 
iiig the back 

Of the mountain, avoided a circuit be- 
tween 

Two long valleys ; and thinking, *' Per- 
chance change of scene 

May create change of thought," Alfred 
Vargrave agreed. 

Mounted horse, and set forth to BigoiTe 
at full speed. 



His guide rode beside him. 

The king of the guides ! 
The gallant Bernard ! ever boldly he 

rides. 
Ever gavly he sings ! For to him. from 

of old. 
The hills have confided their secrets, 

and told 
Where the white partridge lies, and the 

cock o' the woods ; 
Where the izard flits fine through the 

cold solitudes ; 
Where the bear lurks perdu ; and the 

lynx on his prey 
At nightfall descends, when the moun- 
tains are gray ; 
Where the sassafras blooms, and the 

bluebell is born, 



J 



LUCILE. 



43 



And the wild rhododendron first reddens 

at morn ; 
"Where the source of the waters is fine 

as a thread ; 
How the storm on the wild Maladetta is 

spread ; 
Where the thunder is hoarded, the snows 

lie asleep, 
Whence the torrents are fed, and the 

cataracts leap ; 
And, familiarly known in the hamlets, 

the vales 
Have whispered to him all their thou- 
sand love-tales ; 
He has laughed with the girls, he has 

leaped with the boys ; 
Ever blithe, ever bold, ever boon, he 

enjoys 
An existence untroubled by envy or 

strife, 
While he feeds on the dews and the juices 

of Ufe. 
And so lightly he sings, and so gayly 

he rides, 
For Bernard le Sauteur is the king 

of all guides ! 



But Bernard found, that day, neither 

song nor love-tale, 
Nor adventure, nor laughter, nor legend 

avail 
To arouse from his deep and profound 

revery 
Him that silent beside him rode fast as 

could be. 



Ascending the mountain they slackened 
their pace. 

And the marvellous prospect each moment 
changed face. 

The breezy and pure inspirations of morn 

Breathed about them. The scarped 
ravaged mountains, all worn 

By the torrents, whose course they 
watched faintly meander, 

Were alive with the diamonded shy sal- 
amander. 

They paused o'er the bosom of purple 
abysses, 

And wound through a region of green 
wildernesses ; 

The waters went wirbling above and 
around, 

The forests hung heaped in their shad- 
ows profound. 



Here the Larboust, and there Aventin, 

Castellon, 
Which the Demon of Tempest, descend- 
ing upon, 
Had wasted with fire, and the peaceful 

Cazeaux 
They marked ; and far down in the sun- 
shine below. 
Half dipped in a valley of airiest blue. 
The white happy homes of the village 

ofOo, 
Where the age is yet golden. 

And high overhead 
The wrecks of the combat of Titans were 

spread. 
Red granite and quartz, in the alchemic 

sun, 
Fused their splendors of crimson and 

crystal in one ; 
And deep in the moss gleamed the deli- 
cate shells, 
And the dew lingered fresh in the heavy 

harebells ; 
The large violet burned ; the campanula 

blue ; 
And Autumn's own flower, the saffron, 

peered through 
The red-berried brambles and thick sas- 
safras ; 
And fragrant with thyme was the deli- 
cate grass ; 
And high up, and higher, and highest 

of all, 
The secular phantom of snow ! 

O'er the wall 
Of a gray sunless glen gaping drowsy 

below. 
That aerial spectre, revealed in the glow 
Of the great golden dawn, hovers faint 

on the eye, 
And appears to grow in, and grow out 

of, the sky, 
And plays with the fancy, and baflies 

the sight. 
Only -reached by the vast rosy ripple of 

light, 
And the cool star of eve, the Imperial 

Thing, 
Half unreal, like some mythological 

king 
That dominates all in a fable of old, 
Takes command of a valley as fair to 

behold 
As aught in old fables ; and, seen or 

unseen, 
Dwells aloof over all, in the vast and 
serene 



44 



LUCILE. 



Sacred sky, where the footsteps of spir- 
its are furled 

'Mid the clouds beyond which spreads 
the infinite world 

Of man's last aspirations, unfathomed, 
untrod, 

Save by Even and Morn, and the angels 
of God. 

VII. 

Meanwhile, as they journeyed, that ser- 
pentine road, 

Now abruptly reversed, unexpectedly 
showed 

A gay cavalcade some few feet in ad- 
vance. 

Alfred Vargrave's heart beat ; for he saw 
at a glance 

The slight form of Lucile in the midst. 
His next look 

Showed him, joyously ambling beside 
her, the Duke. 

The rest of the troop which had thus 
caught his ken 

He knew not, nor noticed them (women 
and men). 

They were laughing and talking to- 
gether. Soon after 

His sudden appearance suspended their 
laughter. 

VIII. 

" You here ! . . . I imagined you far on 
your way 

To Bigorre ! " . . . said Lucile. " What 
has caused you to stay ? " 

" I am on my way to Bigorre," he re- 
plied, 

" But, since my way would seem to be 
yours, let me I'ide 

For one moment beside you." And 
then, with a stoop, 

At her ear, ..." and forgive me ! " 

IX. 

By this time the troop 
Had regathered its numbers. 

Lucile was as pale 
As the cloud 'neath their feet, on its waj'- 

to the vale. 
The Duke had observed it, nor quitted 

her side, 
For even one moment, the whole of the 

ride. 
Alfred smiled, as he thought, "he is 

jealous of her ! " ' 
And the thought of this jealousy added 

a spur 



To his firm resolution and eifort to please. 
He talked much ; was witty, and quite 
at his ease. 



After noontide, the clouds, which had 

traversed the east 
Half the day, gathered closer, arid rose 

and increased. 
The air changed and chilled. As though 

out of the ground, 
There ran up the trees a confused hissin. 

sound. 
And the wind rose. The guides sniff"ed, 

like chamois, the air. 
And looked at each other, and halted, 

and there 
Unbuckled the cloaks from the saddles. 

The white 
Aspens rustled, and turned up their 

frail leaves in fright. 
All announced the approach of the tem- 
pest. 

Erelong, 
Thick darkness descended the mountains 

among ; 
And a vivid, vindictive, and serpentine 

flash 
Gored the darkness, and shore it across. 

with a gash. 
The rain fell in large heavy drops. And 

anon 
Broke the thunder. 

The horses took fright, every one. 
The Duke's in a moment was far out of 

sight. 
The guides whooped. The band wasi 

obliged to alight ; 
And, dispersed up the perilous pathway, j 

walked blind 
To the darkness before from the darkness! 

behind. 



And the Storm is abroad in the moun-j 

tains ! 

He fills j 

The crouched hollows and all the oraculai 

hills 
With dread voices of power. A roused 

million or more 
Of wild echoes reluctantly rise from theii 

hoar 
Immemorial ambush, and roll in tlw 

wake 
Of the cloud, whose reflection leave 

vivid the lake. 



LUCILE. 



45 



And the wind, that wild robber, for plun- 
der descends 

From invisible lands, o'er those black 
mountain ends ; 

He howls as he hounds down his prey ; 
and his lash 

Tears the hair of the timorous wan 
mountain-ash. 

That clings to the rocks, with her gar- 
ments all torn. 

Like a woman in fear ; then he blows 

i his hoarse horn, 

And is off, the fierce guide of destruction 
and terror, 

Up the desolate heights, 'mid an intri- 
cate error 

Of mountain and mist. 



There is war in the skies ! 
Lo ! the black-winged legions of tempest 

arise 
O'er those sharp splintered rocks that 

are gleaming below 
In the soft light, so fair and so fatal, as 

though 
Some seraph burned through them, the 

thunder-bolt searching 
"Which the black cloud unbosomed just 

now. Lo ! the lurching 
And shivering pine-trees, like phantoms, 

that seem 
To waver above, in the dai'k ; and yon 

stream. 
How it hurries and roars, on its way to 

the white 
And paralyzed lake there, appalled at the 

sight 
Of the things seen in heaven ! 



Through the darkness and awe 
That had gathered; around him, Lord 

Alfred now saw, 
Kevealed in the fierce and evanishing 

glare 
Of the lightning that momently pulsed 

through the air, 
A woman alone on a shelf of the hill, 
With her cheek coldly propped on her 

hand, — and as still 
As the rock that she sat on, which 

beetled above 
The black lake beneath her. 

All terror, all love, 



Added speed to the instinct with which 

he rushed on. 
For one moment the blue lightning 

swathed the whole stone 
In its lurid embi'ace : like the sleek 

dazzling snake 
That encircles a sorceress, charmed for 

her sake 
And lulled by her loveliness ; fawning, 

it played 
And caressingly twined round the feet 

and the head 
Of the woman who sat there, undaunted 

and calm 
As the soul of that solitude, listing the 

psalm 
Of the plangent and laboring tempest 

roll slow 
From the caldron of midnight and vapor 

below. 
Next moment from bastion to bastion, 

all round, 
Of the siege-circled mountains, there 

tumbled the sound 
Of the battering thunder's indefinite 

peal. 
And Lord Alfred had sprung to the feet 

of Lucile. 



She started. Once more, with its flick- 
ering wand. 

The lightning approached her. In terror, 
her hand 

Alfred Vargrave had seized within his ; 
and he felt 

The light fingers that coldly and linger- 
ingly dwelt 

In the grasp of his own, tremble faintly. 
" See ! see ! 

"Where the whirlwind hath stricken and 
strangled yon tree ! " 

She exclaimed, . . . "like the passion 
that brings on its breath. 

To the being it embraces, destruction and 
death ! 

Alfred Vargrave, the lightning is round 
you ! " 

"Lucile ! 

I hear — I see — naught but yourself. 
I can feel 

Nothing here but your presence. My 
pride fights in vain 

"With the truth that leaps from me. "We 
two meet again 

'Neath yon terrible heaven that is watch- 
ing above 



46 



LUCILE. 



To avenge if I lie when I swear tliat I 

love, — 
And beneath yonder terrible heaven, at 

your feet, 
I humble my head and my heart. I en- 
treat 
Your pardon, Lucile, for the past, — I 

implore 
For the future your mercy, — implore it 

with more 
Of passion than prayer ever breathed. 

By the power 
Which invisibly touches us both in this 

hour. 
By the rights I have o'er you, Lucile, I 

demand " — 

" The rights ! " . . . said Lucile, and 
drew from him her hand. 

"Yes, the rights ! for what greater to 

man may belong 
Than the right to repair in the future 

the wrong 
To the past ? and the wrong I have done 

you, of yore, 
Hath bequeathed to me aU the sad right 

to restore. 
To retrieve, to amend ! I, who injured 

your life. 
Urge the right to repair it, Lucile ! Be 

my wife. 
My guide, my good angel, my all upon 

earth. 
And accept, for the sake of what yet may 

give worth 
To my life, its contrition ! " 



He paused, for there came 
O'er the cheek of Lucile a swift flush 

like the flame 
That illumined at moments the darkness 

o'erhead. 
With a voice faint and marred by emotion, 

she said, 
"And your pledge to another ?" 

XVI. 

"Hush, hush ! " he exclaimed, 
"My honor will live where my love 

lives, unshamed. 
'T were poor honor indeed, to another to 

give 
That life of which you keep the heart. 

Could I live 



In the light of those young eyes, sup- 
pressing a lie ? 
Alas, no ! your hand holds my whole 

destiny. 
I can never recall what my lips have 

avowed ; 
In your love lies whatever can render me 

proud. 
For the great crime of all my existence 

hath been 
To have known you in vain. And the 

duty best seen, 
And most hallowed, — the duty most 

sacred and sweet, 
Is that which hath led me, Lucile, to 

your feet. 

speak ! and restore me the blessing I 

lost 
When I lost you, — my pearl of all pearls 

beyond cost ! 
And restore to your own life its youth, 

and restore 
The vision, the rapture, the passion of 

yore ! 
Ere our brows had been dimmed in the 

dust of the world. 
When our souls their white wings yet 

exulting unfurled ! 
For your eyes rest no more on the un- 
quiet man, 
The wild star of whose course its pale 

orbit outran, 
Whom the formless indefinite future of 

youth, 
With its lying allurements, distracted. 

In truth 

1 have wearily wandered the world, and 

I feel 
That the least of your lovely regards, 

Lucile, 
Is worth all the world can afford, and 

the dream 
Which, though followed forever, forever 

doth seem 
As fleeting, and distant, and dim, as of 

yore 
W"hen it brooded in twilight, at dawn, 

on the shore 
Of life's untraversed ocean ! I know the 

sole path 
To repose, which my desolate destiny hath. 
Is the path by whose course to your feet 

I return. 
And who else, Lucile, will so tnily 

discern. 
And so deeply revere, all the passionate 

strength, 



LUCILE, 



47 



The sublimity in you, as he whom at 

length 
These have saved from himself, for the 

truth they reveal 
To his worship ? " 

XVII. 
She spoke not ; but Alfred could feel 
The light hand and arm, that upon him 

reposed, 
Thrill and tremble. Those dark eyes 

of hers were half closed ; 
But, under their languid mysterious 

fringe, 
A passionate softness was beaming. One 

tinge 
Of faint imward fire flushed transparently 

through 
The delicate, pallid, and pure olive hue 
Of the cheek, half averted and drooped. 

The rich bosom 
Heaved, as when in the heart of a 

ruffled rose-blossom 
A bee is imprisoned and struggles. 

XVIII. 

Meanwhile 
The sun, in his setting, sent up the last 

smile 
Of his power, to baffle the storm. And, 

behold ! 
O'er the mountains embattled, his 

armies, all gold. 
Rose and rested : while far up the dim 

airy crags. 
Its artillery silenced, its banners in rags, 
The rear of the tempest its sullen retreat 
Drew off slowly, receding in silence, to 

meet 
The powers of the night, which, now 

gathering afar. 
Had already sent forward one bright, 

signal star. 
The curls of her soft and luxuriant hair. 
From the dark riding-hat, which Lucile 

used to wear. 
Had escaped ; and Lord Alfred now 

covered with kisses 
The redolent warmth of those long fall- 
ing tresses. 
Neither he, nor Lucile, felt the rain, 

which not yet 
Had ceased falling around them ; when, 

splashed, drenched, and wet. 
The Due de Luvois down the rough 

mountain course 



Approached them as fast as the road, 

and his horse, 
Which was limping, would suffer. The 

beast had just now 
Lost his footing, and over the perilous 

brow 
Of the storm-haunted mountain his mas- 
ter had thrown ; 
But the Duke, who was agile, had leaped 

to a stone. 
And the horse, being bred to the instinct 

which lills 
The breast of the wild mountaineer in 

these hills. 
Had scrambled again to his feet ; and 

now master 
And horse bore about them the signs of 

disaster. 
As they heavily footed their way through 

the mist. 
The horse with his shoulder, the Duke 

with his wrist, 
Bruised and bleeding. 



If ever your feet, like my own, 
reader, have traversed these moun< 

tains alone. 
Have you felt your identity shrink and 

contract 
At the sound of the distant and dim 

cataract. 
In the presence of nature's immensities ? 

Say, 
Have you hung o'er the torrent, bedewed 

with its spray, 
And, lea^dng the rock-way, contorted 

and rolled. 
Like a huge couchant Typhon, fold 

heaped over fold, 
Tracked the summits, from which every 

step that you tread 
Rolls the loose stones, with thunder be- 
low, to the bed 
Of invisible waters, whose mystical sound 
Fills with awful suggestions the dizzy 

profound ? 
And, laboring onwards, at last through 

a break 
In the walls of the world, burst at once 

on the lake ? 

If you have, this description I might 

have withheld. 
You remember how strangely your bosom 

has swelled 



j4S 



LUCILE. 



At the vision revealed. On the over- 
worked soil 

Of this planet, enjoyment is sharpened 
by toil ; 

And one seems, by the pain of ascending 
the height, 

To have conquered a claim to that won- 
derful sight. 



Hail, virginal daughter of cold Espingo ! 

Hail, Naiad, whose realm is the cloud 
and the snow ; 

For o'er thee the angels have whitened 
their wings. 

And the thirst of the seraphs is quenched 
at thy springs. 

What hand hath, in heaven, upheld 
thine expanse ? 

When the breath of creation first fash- 
ioned fair France, 

Did the Spirit of HI, in his downthrow 
appalling. 

Bruise the world, and thus hollow thy 
basin while falling ? 

Ere the mammoth was bom hath some 
monster unnamed 

The base of thy mountainous pedestal 
framed ? 

And later, when Power to Beauty was 
wed. 

Did some delicate fairy embroider thy 
bed 

With the fragile valerian and wUd col- 
umbine ? 



But thy secret thou keepest, and I will 

keep mine ; 
For once gazing on thee, it flashed on 

my soul, 
All that secret ! I saw in a vision the 

whole 
Vast design of the ages ; what was and 

shall be ! 
Hands unseen raised the veil of a great 

mystery 
For one moment. I saw, and I heard ; 

and my heart 
Bore witness within me to iniinite art. 
In infinite power proving infinite love ; 
Caught the great choral chant, marked 

the dread pageant move — • 
The divine Whence aud Whither of life ! 

But, O daughter 
Of Oo, not more safe in the deep, silent 

water 



Is thy secret, than mine in my heart. 

Even so. 
What I then saw and heard, the world 

never shall know. 



The dimness of eve o'er the valleys had 
closed. 

The rain had ceased falling, the moun- 
tains reposed. 

The stars had enkindled in luminous 
courses 

Their slow-sliding lamps, when, re- 
mounting their horses. 

The riders retraversed that mighty ser- 
ration 

Of rock -work. Thus left to its own 
desolation, 

The lake, from whose glimmering limits 
the last 

Transient pomp of the pageants of sun- 
set had passed, 

Drew into its bosom the darkness, and 
only 

Admitted within it one im.age, — a lonely 

And tremulous phantom of flickering 
light 

That followed the mystical moon through 
the night. 

XXIII. 

It was late when o'er Serchon at last 

they descended. 
To her chalet, in silence, Lord Alfred 

attended 
Lucile. As they parted she whispered 

him low, 
■'You have made to me, Alfred, an offer 

I know 
All the worth of, believe me. I cannot 

reply 
Without time for reflection. Good night! 

— not good by." 

"Alas ! 'tis the very same answer you 

made 
To the Due de Luvois but a day since," 

he said. 

"No, Alfred! the very same, no," she 

replied. 
Her voice shook. "If you love me,, 

obey me. 
Abide my answer, to-morrow." 

XXIV. 

Alas, Cousin Jack ! 



LUCILE. 



49 



You Cassandra in breeches and boots ! 

turn your back 
To the ruins of Troy. Prophet, seek not 

for glory 
Amongst thine own people. 

I follow my story. 



CANTO V. 



Up ! — forth again, Pegasus ! — "Many 's 
the slip," 

Hath the proverb well said, "'twixt the 
cup and the lip ! " 

How bl^t should we be, have I often 
conceived. 

Had we really achieved what we nearly 
achieved ! 

"We but catch at the skirts of the thing 
we would be, 

And fall back on the lap of a false destiny. 

So it will be, so has been, since this 
world began ! 

And the happiest, noblest, and best part 
of man — 

la the part which he never hath fully 
played out : — 

For the first and last word in life's vol- 
ume is — Doubt. 

The face the most fair to our vision al- 
lowed 

Is the face we encounter and lose in the 
crowd. 

The thought that most thrills our exist- 
ence is one 

Which, before we can frame it in lan- 
guage, is gone. 

Horace ! the rustic still rests by the 

river. 
But the river flows on, and flows past 

him forever ! 
Who can sit down, and say, ..." What 

I will be, I will"? 
Who stand up, and affirm , . , "What 

I was, I am still " ? 
Who is it that must not-, if questioned, 

say, ..." What 

1 would have remained, or become, I 

am not " ? 
We are ever behind, or beyond, or beside 
Our intrinsic existence. Forever at hide 
And seek with our souls. Not in Hades 

alone 
Doth Sisyphus roll, ever frustrate, the 

stone, 

4 



Do theDanaids ply, ever vainly, the sieve. 
Tasks as futile does earth to its denizens 

give. 
Yet there 's none so unhappy, but what 

he hath been 
Just about to be happy, at some time, I 

ween ; 
And none so beguiled and defrauded by 

chance. 
But what once, in his life, some minute 

circumstance 
Would have fully sufficed to secure him 

the bliss 
Which, missing it then, he forever must 

miss ; 
And to most of us, ere we go down to 

the grave. 
Life, relenting, accords the good gift we 

would have ; 
But, as though by some strange imper- 
fection in fate. 
The good gift, when it comes, comes a 

moment too late. 
The Future's great veil our breath fit- 
fully flaps. 
And behind it broods ever the mighty 

Perhaps. 
Yet ! there 's many a slip 'twixt the cup 

and the lip ; 
But while o'er the brim of life's beaker 

I dip. 
Though the cup may next moment be 

shattered, the wine 
Spilt, one deep health I '11 pledge, and 

that health shall be thine, 
being of beauty and bliss ! seen and 

known 
In the deeps of my soul, and possessed 

there alone ! 
My days know thee not ; and my lip? 

name thee never. 
Thy place in my poor life is vacant for- 
ever. 
We have met : we have parted. No 

more is recorded 
In my annals on earth. This alone was 

afforded 
To the man whom men knew me, or 

deem me, to be. 
But, far down, in the depth of my life's 

mystery, 
(Like the siren that under the deep 

ocean dwells. 
Whom the wind as it wails, and the 

wave as it swells. 
Cannot stir in the calm of her coralline 

halls, 



50 



LUCILE. 



'Mid tlie world's adamantine and dim 

pedestals ; 
At wliose feet sit the sylphs and sea 

fairies ; for whom 
The almondiiie glimmers, the soft sam- 
phires bloom) — 
Thou abidest and reignest forever, 

Queen 
Of that better world which thou swayest 

unseen ! 
My one perfect mistress ! my all things 

in all! 
Thee by no vulgar name known to men 

do I call : 
For the seraphs have named thee to me 

in my sleep, 
And that name is a secret I sacredly 

keep. 
But, wherever this nature of mine is 

most fair, 
And its thoughts are the purest — be- 
loved, thou art there ! 
And whatever is noblest in aught that I 

do, 
Is done to exalt and to worship thee too. 
The world gave thee not to nie, no ! and 

the world 
Cannot take thee away from me now. 

I have furled 
The wings of my spirit about thy bright 

head ; 
At thy feet are my soul's immortalities 

spread. 
Thou mightest have been to me much. 

Thou art more. 
And in silence I worship, in darkness 

adore. 
If life be not that which without us we 

iind — 
Chance, accident, merely — but rather 

the mind, 
And the soul which, within us, surviv- 

eth these things, 
If our real existence have truly its 

springs 
Less in that which we do than in that 

which we feel, 
Not in vain do I worship, not hopeless 

I kneel ! 
For then, though I name thee not mis- 
tress or wife, 
Thou art mine — and mine only, — 

life of my life I 
And though many 's the slip 'twixt the 

cup and the lip, 
Yet while o'er the brim of life's beaker 

1 dip, 



While there's life on the' lip, while 
there 's warmth in the wine, 

One deep health I '11 pledge, and that 
health shall be thine ! 



This world, on whose peaceable breast 
we repose 

TJnconvulsed by alarm, once confused in 
the throes 

Of a tumult divine, sea and land, moist 
and dry, 

And in fiery fusion commixed earth and 
sky. 

Time cooled it, and calmed it, and 
taught it to go 

The round of its orbit in peace, long ago. 

The wind changeth and whirleth con- 
tinually : 

All the rivers run down and run into 
the sea : 

The wind whirleth about, and is pres- 
ently stilled : 

All the rivers mn down, yet the sea is 
not filled : 

The sun goetli forth from his chambers : 
the sun 

Ariseth, and lo ! he descendeth anon. 

All returns to its place. Use and Habit 
are powers 

Far stronger than Passion, in this world 
of ours. 

The great laws of life readjust their in- 
fraction, 

And to every emotion appoint a reaction. 



Alfred Vargrave had time, after leaving 

Lucile, 
To review the rash step he had taken, 

and feel 
What the world would have called *'/ns 

erro7ieous position. " 
Thought obtruded its claim, and enforced 

recognition : 
Like a creditor who, when the gloss is 

worn out 
On the coat which we once wore witft* 

pleasure, no doubt. 
Sends us in his account for the garment 

we bought. 
Every spendthrift to passion is debtor to 

thought. 

IV. 

He felt ill at ease with himself. He 
could feel 



LUCILE. 



51 



Little doubt what the answer would be 

from Lucile. 
Her eyes, when they parted, — her voice, 

when they met, 
Still enraptured his heart, which they 

haunted. And yet, 
Though, exulting, he deemed himself 

loved, where he loved. 
Through his mind a vague self-accusation 

there moved. 
O'er his fancy, when .fancy was fairest, 

would rise 
The infantine face of Matilda, with eyes 
So sad, so reproachful, so cruelly kind. 
That his heart failed within him. In vain 

did he find 
A thousand just reasons for what he had 

done : 
The vision that troubled him would not 

be gone. 
In vain did he say to himself, and with 

truth, 
"Matilda has beauty, and fortune, and 

youth ; 
And her heart is too young to have deeply 

involved 
All its hopes in the tie which must now 

be dissolved. 
'T were a false sense of honor in me to 

suppress 
The sad truth which I owe it to her to 

confess. 
And what reason have I to presume this 

poor life 
Of my own, with its languid and frivolous 

strife. 
And without what alone might endear 

it to lier, 
"Were a boon all so precious, indeed, to 

confer. 
Its withdrawal can wrong her ? 

" It is not as though 
I were bound to some poor village maiden, 

I know. 
Unto whose simple heart mine were all 

upon earth, 
Or to whose simple fortunes my own 
% . could give wo^h. 

Matilda, in all the world's gifts, wiU not 

miss 
Aught tha,t I could procure her. 'T is 

best as it is_! " 



en 



-^;;^n vain did he say to himself, " Wh^ 
,■* I came 

Tothi$ fatal spot, I had nothing to blame 



Or reproach myself for, in the thoughts 

of my heart. 
I could not foresee that its pulses would- 

start 
Into such strange emotion on seeing 

once more 
A woman I left with indifference before. 
I believed, and with honest conviction' 

believed. 
In my love for Matilda. I never con- 
ceived 
That another could shake it. I deemed 

I had done 
With the wild heart of youth, and looked 

hopefully on 
To the soberer manhood, the worthier 

life. 
Which I sought in the love that I vowed 

to my wife. 
Poor child ! she shall learn the whole 

truth. She shall know 
What I knew not myself but a few days 

ago. 
The world wiU console her, — her pride 

will support, — 
Her youth will renew its emotions. In 

short. 
There is nothing in me that Matilda will 

miss 
When once we have parted. 'T is best 

as it is ! " 

YI. 

But in vain did he reason and argue. 
Alas! 

He yet felt unconvinced that 't was best 
as it was. 

Out of reach of all reason, forever would 
rise 

That infantine face of Matilda, with 
eyes 

So sad, so reproachful, so cruelly kind, 

That they harrowed his heart and dis- 
tracted his mind. ,- 

VII. 

And then, when he turned from these 
thoughts to Lucile, 

Though his heart rose enraptured, he 
could not but feel 

A vague sense of awe of her nature. Be- 
hind 

All the beauty of heart, and the graces 
of mind. 

Which he saw and revered in her, some- 
thing unknown 



52 



LUCILE. 



And unseen in that nature still troubled 

his own. 
He felt that Lucile penetrated and prized 
Whatever was noblest and best, though 

disguised, 
In himself ; but he did not feel sure that 

he knew, 
Or completely possessed, what, half hid- 
den from view, 
Remained lofty and lonely in her. 

Then, her life. 
So untamed, and so free ! would she 

yield as a wife. 
Independence, long claimed as a woman ? 

Her name, 
So linked by the world with that spurious 

fame 
"Which the beauty and wit of a woman 

assert, 
In some measure, alas ! to her own loss 

and hurt 
In the serious thoughts of a man ! . . . 

This reflection 
O'er the love which he felt cast a shade 

of dejection, 
From which he forever escaped to the 

thought 
Doubt could reach not. . . . "I love her, 

and all else is naught ! " 



His hand trembled strangely in breaking 

the seal 
Of the letter which reached him at last 

from Lucile. 
At the sight of the very first word that 

he read. 
That letter dropped down from his hand 

like the dead 
Leaf in autumn, that, falling, leaves 

naked and bare 
A desolate tree in a wide wintry air. 
He passed his hand hurriedly over his 

eyes. 
Bewildered, incredulous. Angry sur- 
prise 
And dismay, in one sharp moan, broke 

from him. Anon 
He picked up the page, and read rapidly 

on. 



The CoMTESSE DE Nevers to LOED 
Alfred Vargkave. 

«'No, Alfred! 

" If over the present, when last 



We two met, rose the glamour and inist 

of the past. 
It hath now rolled away, and our two 

paths are plain, 
And those two paths divide us. 

" That hand which again 
Mine one moment has clasped as the 

hand of a brother, 
That hand and your honor are pledged 

to another ! 
Forgive, Alfred Vargrave, forgive me, if 

yet 
For that moment (now past !) I have 

made you forget 
What was due to yourself and that other 

one. Yes, 
Mine the fault, and be mine the repent- 
ance ! Not less, 
In now owning this fault, Alfred, let 

me own, too, 
I foresaw not the sorrow involved in it. 

"True, 
That meeting, which hath been so fatal, 

I sought, 
I alone ! But 0, deem not it was with 

the thought 
Or your heart to regain, or the past to 

rewaken. 
No ! believe me, it was with the firm 

and unshaken 
Conviction, at least, that our meeting 

would be 
Without peril to you, although haply to 

me 
The salvation of all my existence. 

" I own, 
When the rumor first reached me, which 

lightly made known 
To the world your engagement, my heart 

and my mind 
Suffered torture intense. It was cniel 

to find 
That so much of the life of my life, half 

unknown 
To myself, had been silently settled on one 
Upon whom but to think it would soon 

be a crime. 
Then I said to myself, * From the thral- 
dom which time 
Hath not weakened there rests but one 

hope of escape. 
That image which Fancy seems ever to 

shape 
From the solitude left round the ruins 

of yore 
Is a phantom. The Being I loved is no 
more. 



LUCILE. 



53 



What I hear in the silence, and see in 

the lone 
Void of life, is the young hero born of 

my own 
Perished youth : and his image, serene 

and sublime, 
In my heart rests unconscious of change 

and of time. 
Could I see it but once more, as time 

and as change 
Have made it, a thing unfamiliar and 

strange. 
See, indeed, that the Being I loved in 

my youth 
Is no more, and what rests now is only, 

in truth. 
The hard^ pupil of life and the world : 

then, 0, then, 
I should wake from a dream, and my 

life be again 
Reconciled to the world ; and, released 

from vegi-et, 
Take the lot fate accords to my choice.' 
"So we met. 
But the danger I did not foresee has oc- 
curred : 
The danger, alas, to yourself ! I have 

erred. 
But happy for both that this error hath 

been 
Discovered as soon as the danger was 

seen ! 
"We meet, Alfred Vargrave, no more. I, 

indeed, 
Shall be far from Serchon when this let- 
ter you read. 
My course is decided ; my path I discern : 
Doubt is over ; my future is fixed now. 

" Return, 
return to the young living love ! 

Wlience, alas ! 
If, one moment, you wandered, think 

only it was 
More deeply to bury the past love. 

" And, oh ! 
Believe, Alfred Vargrave, that I, where 

I go 
On my far distant pathway through life, 

shall rejoice 
To treasure in memory all that your 

voice 
Has avowed to me, all in which others 

have clothed 
To my fancy with beauty and worth 

your betrothed ! 
In the fair morning light, in the orient 

dew 



Of that young life, now yours, can you 

fail to renew 
All the noble and pure aspirations, the 

truth. 
The freshness, the faith, of your own 

earnest youth ? 
Yes ! you will be happy. I, too, in the 

bliss 
I foresee for you, I shall be happy. 

And this 
Proves me worthy your friendship. And 

so — let it prove 
That I cannot — 1 do not — respond to 

your love. 
Yes, indeed ! be convinced that I could 

not (no, no, 
Never, never !) have rendered you happy. 

And so. 
Rest assured that, if false to the vows 

you have plighted. 
You would have endured, when the first 

brief, excited 
Emotion was o'er, not alone the re- 
morse 
Of honor, but also (to render it worse) 
Disappointed affection. 

*' Yes, Alfred ; you start ? 
But think ! if the world was too much 

in your heart, 
And too little in mine, when we parted 

ten years 
Ere this last fatal meeting, that time 

(ay, and tears !) 
Have but deepened the old demarcations 

which then 
Placed our natures asunder ; and we 

two again. 
As we then were, would still have been 

strangely at strife. 
In that self-independence which is to 

my life 
Its necessity now, as it once was its 

pride. 
Had our course through the world been 

henceforth side by side, 
I should have revolted forever, and 

shocked. 
Your respect for the world's plausibilities, 

mocked, 
"Without meaning to do so, and outraged, 

all those 
Social creeds which you live by. 

" Oh ! do not suppose 
That I blame you. Perhaps it is you 

that are right. 
Best, then, all as it is ! 

" Deem these words life's Good-night 



54 



LUCILE. 



To the hope of a moment : no more ! 

If there fell 
Any tear on this page, 't was a friend's. 
"So farewell 
To the past — and to you, Alfred Var- 
grave, 

" LuciLB." 



So ended that letter. 

The room seemed to reel 
Round and round in the mist that was 

scorching his eyes 
With a fiery dew. Grief, resentment, 

surprise, 
Half choked him ; each word he had 

read, as it smote 
Down some hope, rose and grasped like 

a hand at his throat. 
To stifle and strangle him. 

Gasping already 
For relief from himself, with a footstep 

unsteady. 
He passed from his chamher. He felt 

both oppressed 
And excited. The letter he thrust in 

his breast. 
And, in search of fresh air and of soli- 
tude, passed 
The long lime-trees of Serchon. His 

footsteps at last 
Reached a bare narrow heath by the skirts 

of a wood : 
It was sombre and silent, and suited his 

mood. 
By a mineral spring, long unused, now 

unknown, 
Stood a small ruined abbey. He reached 

it, sat down 
On a fragment of stone, 'mid the wild 

weed and thistle. 
And read over again that perplexing 

epistle. 



In re-reading that letter, there rolled 

from his mind 
The raw mist of resentment which first 

made him blind 
To the pathos breathed through it. 

Tears rose in his eyes. 
And a hope sweet and strange in his 

heart seemed to rise. 
The truth which he saw not the first 

time he read 
That letter, he now saw, — that each 

word betrayed 



The love which the writer had sought to 

conceal. 
His love was received not, he could not 

but feel. 
For one reason alone, — that his love 

was not free. 
True ! free yet he was not : but could 

he not be 
Free erelong, free as air to revoke that 

farewell. 
And to sanction his own hopes ? he had 

but to tell 
The truth to Matilda, and she were the 

first 
To release him : he had but to wait at 

the worst. 
Matilda's relations would probably 

snatch 
Any pretext, with pleasure, to breat off 

a match 
In which they had yielded, alone at the 

whim 
Of their spoiled child, a languid ap- 
proval to him. 
She herself, careless child ! was her love 

for him aught 
Save the first joyous fancy succeeding the 

thought 
She last gave to her doll ? was she able 

to feel 
Such a love as the love he divined in 

Lucile ? 
He would seek her, obtain his release, 

and, oh ! then, 
He had but to fly to Lucile, and again 
Claim the love which his heart would be 

free to command. 
But to press on Lucile any claim to her 

hand, 
Or even to seek, or to see her, before 
He could say, " I am free ! free, Lucile, 

to implore 
That great blessing on life you alone can 

confer," 
'T were dishonor in him, 't would be in- 
sult to her. 
Thus still with the letter outspread on 

his knee 
He followed so fondly his own revery. 
That he felt not the angry regard of a 

man 
Fixed upon him ; he saw not a face 

stern and wan 
Turned towards him ; he heard not a 

footstep that passed 
And i-epassed the lone spot where he 

stood, till at last 



LUCILE. 



55 



A hdatse Vdice aro-ased- him. 

He looked up and saw, 
On the bare heath before him, the Due 
de Luvois. 



With aggressive ironical tones, and a 

look 
Of concentrated insolent challenge, the 

Duke 
Addressed to Lord Alfred some sneering 

allusion 
To "the doubtless sublime reveries his 

intrusion 
Had, he feared, interrupted. Milord 

would do better, 
He fancied, however, to fold up a letter 
The writing of which was too well known, 

in fact, 
His remark as he passed to have failed 

to attract." 



It was obvious to Alfred the Frenchman 

was bent 
Upon picking a quarrel ! and doubtless 

't was meant 
From him to provoke it by sneers such 

as these. 
A moment suflB.ced his quick instinct to 

seize 
The position. He felt that he could not 

expose 
His own name, or Lucile's, or Matilda's, 

to those 
Idle tongues that would bring down 

upon him the ban 
Of the world, if he now were to fight 

with this man. 
And indeed, when he looked in the 

Duke's haggard face. 
He was pained by the change there he 

could not but trace. 
And he almost felt pity. 

He therefore put by 
Each remark from the Duke with some 

careless reply, 
And coldly, but courteously, waving 

away 
The iU-huraor the Duke seemed resolved 

to display, 
Rose, and turned, with a stern saluta- 
tion, aside. 



Then the Duke put himself in the path, 
made one stride 



In advance, raised a hand, fixed upon 

him his eyes, 
And said . . . 

" Hold, Lord Alfred ! Away with 

disguise ! 
I will own that I sought you a moment 

ago. 
To fix on you a quarrel. I still can do 

so 
Upon any excuse. I prefer to be frank. 
I admit not a rival in fortune or rank 
To the hand of a woman, whatever be 

hers 
Or her suitor's. I love the Comtesse de 

Nevers. 
I believed, ere you crossed me, and still 

have the right 
To believe, that she would have been 

mine. To her sight 
You return, and the woman is suddenly 

changed. 
You step in between us : her heart is 

estranged. 
You ! who now are betrothed to another, 

I know : 
You ! whose name with Lucile's nearly 

ten years ago 
Was coupled by ties which you broke : 

you ! the man 
I reproached on the day oar acquaint- 
ance began : 
You ! that left her so lightly, — I can- 
not believe 
That you love, as I love, her ; nor can 

1 conceive 
You, indeed, have the right so to love 

her. 

"Milord 
I will not thus tamely concede, at your 

word. 
What, a few days ago, I believed to be 

mine ! 
I shall yet persevere : I shall yet be, in 

fine, 
A rival you dare not despise. It is plain 
That to settle this contest there can but 

remain 
One way — need I say what it is ? " 



Not unmoved 
Wibh regretful respect for the earnest- 
ness proved 
By the speech he had heard, Alfred Var- 

grave replied 
In words which he trusted might vet 
turn aside 



56 



HJCILE. 



The quarrel from which he felt-bound to 

abstain, 
And, with stately urbanity, strove to 

explain 
To the Duke that he too (a fair rival at 

worst !) 
Had not been accepted. 

XVI. 

" Accepted ! say first 
Are you free to have offered ? " 

Lord Alfred was mute. 



"Ah, you dare not reply !" cried the 
Duke. " Why dispute. 

Why palter with me ? You are silent ! 
and why ? 

Because, in your conscience, you cannot 
deny 

'T was from vanity, wanton and cruel 
withal. 

And the wish an ascendency lost to re- 
call. 

That you stepped in between me and 
her. If, milord. 

You be really sincere, I ask only one 
word. 

Say at once you renounce her. At once, 
on my part, 

I will ask your forgiveness with all truth 
of heart. 

And there can be no quarrel between us. 
Say on ! " 

Lord Alfred grew galled and impatient. 
This tone 

Eoused a strong irritation he could not 
repress. 

"You have not the right, sir," he said, 
"and still less 

The power, to make terms and condi- 
tions with me. 

I refuse to reply." 

XVIII. 

As diviners may see 

Fates they cannot avert in some figure 
occult, 

He foresaw in a moment each evil result 

Of the quarrel now imminent. 

There, face to face, 

'Mid the ruins and tombs of a long- 
perished race, 

With, for witness, the stern Autumn 
Sky overhead, 



And beneath them, unnoticed, the graves, 

and the dead. 
Those two men had met, as it were on 

the ridge 
Of that perilous, narrow, invisible bridge 
Dividing the Past from the Future, so 

small 
That, if one should pass over, the other 

must fall. 



On the ear, at that moment, the sound 

of a hoof. 
Urged with speed, sharply smote ; and 

from under the roof 
Of the forest in view, where the skirts of 

it verged 
On the heath where they stood, at full 

gallop emerged 
A horseman. 

A guide he appeared, by the sash 
Of red silk round the waist, and the long 

leathern lash 
With the short wooden handle, slung 

crosswise behind 
The short jacket ; the loose canvas trouser, 

confined 
By the long boots ; the woollen capote ; 

and the rein, 
A mere hempen cord on a curb. 

Up the plain 
He wheeled his horse, white with the 

foam on his flank. 
Leaped the rivulet lightly, turned sharp 

from the bank. 
And, approaching the Duke, raised his 

woollen capote. 
Bowed low in the selle, and delivered a 

note. 

XX. 

The two stood astonished. The Duke, 

with a gest 
Of apology, turned, stretched his hand, 

and possessed 
Himself of the letter, changed color, and 

tore 
The page open, and read. 

Ere a moment was o'er 
His whole aspect changed. A light 

rose to his eyes, 
And a smile to his lips. While with 

startled surprise 
Lord Alfred yet watched him, he turned 

on his heel. 
And said gayly, "A pressing request 

from Lucile ! 



LUCILE. 



67 



You are quite right, Lord Alfred ! fair 
rivals at worst, 

Our relative place may perchance be re- 
versed. 

You are not accepted — nor free to pro- 
pose ! 

I, perchance, am accepted already ; who 
knows ? 

I had warned you, milord, I should still 
persevere. 

This letter — but stay ! you can read it 
— look here ! " 



It was now Alfred's turn to feel roused 

an^ enraged. 
But Lucile to himself was not pledged 

or engaged 
By aught that could sanction resentment. 

He said 
Not a word, but turned round, took the 

letter, and read . . . 

The CoMTESSE DE ISTevers to the Dtrc 

DE LUVOIS. 

" Saint Saviour. 
"Your letter, which followed me here, 

makes me stay 
Till I see you again. "With no moment's 

delay 
I entreat, I conjure you, by all that you 

feel 
Or profess, to come to me directly. 

"Lucile." 

XXII, 

" Your letter ! " He then had been 

writing to her ! 
Coldly shrugging his shoulders, Lord 

Alfred said, "Sir, 
Do not let me detain you ! " 

The Duke smUed and bowed ; 
Placed the note in his bosom ; addressed, 

half aloud, 
A few words to the messenger : . . . 

"Say your despatch 
Will be answered ere nightfall " ; then 

glanced at his watch, 
And turned back to the Baths. 



Alfred Vargrave stood still, 
Tom, distracted in heart, and divided 

in will. 
He turned to Lucile's farewell letter to 

him. 



And read over her words ; rising tears 

made them dim ; 
' ' Doubt is over : my future is fixed now, " 

they said, 
^' My course is decided." Her course? 

what ! to wed 
With this insolent rival*! With that 

thought there shot 
Through his heart an acute jealous an- 
guish. But not 
Even thus could his clear worldly sense 

quite excuse 
Those strange words to the Duke. She 

was free to refuse 
Himself, free the Duke to accept, it was 

true : 
Even then, though, this eager and 

strange rendezvous 
How imprudent ! To some unfrequented 

lone inn. 
And so late (for the night was about to 

begin) — 
She, companionless there ! — had she 

bidden that man ? 
A fear, vague, and formless, and horri- 
ble, ran 
Through his heart. 



At that moment he looked up, and saw, 
Riding fast through the forest, the Due 

de Luvois, 
Who waved his hand to him, and sped 

out of sight. 
The day was descending. He felt 'twould 

be night 
Ere that man reached Saint Saviour. 



He walked on, but not 
Back toward Serchon : he walked on, 

but knew not in what 
Direction, nor yet with what object, in- 
deed. 
He was walking ; but still he walked on 
without heed. 

XXVI. 

The day had been sullen ; but, towards 

his decline. 
The sun sent a stream of wild light up 

the pine. 
Darkly denting the red light revealed at 

its back. 
The old ruined abbey rose roofless and 

black. 



58 



LUCILE. 



The spring that yet oozed through the 

moss-paven floor 
Had suggested, no doubt, to the monks 

there, of yore, 
The site of that refuge where, back to 

its God 
How many a heart, now at rest 'neath 

the sod, 
Had borne from the world all the same 

wild unrest 
That now preyed on his own ! 



By the thoughts in his breast 
With vaiying impulse divided and torn, 
He traversed the scant heath, and 

reached the forlorn 
Autumn woodland, in which but a short 

while ago 
He had seen the Duke rapidly enter ; 

and so 
He too entered. The light waned 

around him, and passed 
Into darkness. The wrathful, red Oc- 
cident cast 
One glare of vindictive inquiry behind. 
As the last light of day from the high 

wood declined. 
And the great forest sighed its farewell 

to the beam. 
And fer off on the stillness the voice of 

the stream 
Fell faintly. 



Nature, how fair is thy face, 
And how light is thy heart, and how 

friendless thy grace ! 
Thou false mistress of man ! thou dost 

sport with him lightly 
In his hours of ease and enjoyment ; and 

brightly 
Dost thou smile to his smile ; to his joys 

thou inclinest, 
But his sorrows, thou knowest them 

not, nor divinest. 
While he woos, thou art wanton ; thou 

lettest him love thee ; 
But thou art not his friend, for his grief 

cannot move thee ; 
And at last, when he sickens and dies, 

what dost thou ? 
All as gay are thy garments, as careless 

thy brow. 
And thou laughest and toyest with any 

new comer, 



Not a tear more for winter, a smile less 

for summer ! 
Hast thou never an anguish to heave 

the heart under 
That fair breast of thine, thou feminine 

wonder ! 
For all those — the young, and the fair, 

and the strong. 
Who have loved thee, and lived with 

thee gayly and long, 
And who now on thy bosom lie dead? 

and their deeds 
And their days are forgotten ! 0, hast 

thou no weeds 
And not one year of mourning, — one out 

of the many 
That deck thy new bridals forever, — 

nor any 
Eegrets for thy lost loves, concealed from 

the new, 
thou widow of earth's generations ? 

Goto! 
If the sea and the night wind know aught 

of these things, 
They do not reveal it. We are not thy 

kings. 



CANTO VI. 



"The huntsman has ridden too far on 

the chase. 
And eldrich, and eerie, and strange is 

the place ! 
The castle betokens a date long gone by. 
He crosses the court-yard with curious 

eye: 
He wanders from chamber to chamber, 

and yet 
From strangeness to strangeness his foot- 
steps are set ; 
And the whole place grows wilder and 

wilder, and less 
Like aught seen before. Each in obsolete 

dress, 
Strange portraits regard him with looks 

of surprise, 
Strange forms from the aiTas start forth 

to his eyes ; 
Strange epigraphs, blazoned, bum out 

of the wall : 
The spell of a wizard is over it all. 
In her chamber, enchanted, the Princess 

is sleeping 



LUCILE, 



59 



The sleep which for centuries she has 

been keeping. 
If she smile in her sleep, it must be to 

some lover 
Whose lost golden locks the long grasses 

now cover : 
If she moan in her dream, it must be to 

deplore 
Some grief which the world cares to hear 

of no more. 
But how fair is her forehead, how calm 

seems her cheek ! 
And how sweet must that voice be, if 

once she would speak ! 
He looks and he loves her ; but knows 

he (not he !) 
The clew *o unravel this old mystery ? 
And he stoops to those shut lips. The 

shapes on the wall, 
The mute men in armor around him, 

and all 
The weird figures frown, as though striv- 
ing to say, 
' Halt I invade not the Past, reckless child 

of To-day [ 
And give not, madman! the heart in 

thy breast 
To a phantom, the soul of whose sense is 



By an Age not thine own I ' 

" But unconscious is he. 
And he heeds not the warning, he cares 

not to see 
Aught but one form before him ! 

"Rash, wild words are o'er ; 
And the vision is vanished from sight 

evermore ! 
And the gray morning sees, as it drearily 

moves 
O'er a land long deserted, a madman 

that roves 
Through a ruin, and seeks to recapture 

a dream. 
Lost to life and its uses, withdrawn from 

the scheme 
Of man's waking existence, he wanders 

apart." 
And this is an old fairy-tale of the 

heart. 
It is told in all lands, in a different 

tongue ; 
Told with tears by the old, heard with 

smiles by the young. 
And the tale to each heart unto which 

it is known 
Has a different sense. It has puzzled 

my own. 



Eugene de Luvois was a man who, in 

part 
From strong physical health, and that 

vigor of heart 
"Which physical health gives, and partly, 

perchance. 
From a generous vanity nati^'-e to France, 
With the heart of a hunter, whatever 

the quarry. 
Pursued it, too hotly impatient to tarry 
Or turn, till he took it. His trophies 

were trifles : 
But trifler he was not. When rose-leaves 

it rifles, 
No less than when oak-trees it ruins, the 

wind 
Its pleasure pursues with impetuous 

mind. 
Both Eugene de Luvois and Lord Alfred 

had been 
Men of pleasure : but men's pleasant 

vices, which, seen 
Floating faint, in the sunshine of Alfred's 

soft mood. 
Seemed amiable foibles, by Luvois pur- 
sued 
With impetuous passion, seemed semi- 

Satanic. 
Half pleased you see brooks play with 

pebbles ; in panic 
You watch them whirled down by the 

torrent. 

In, truth, 
To the sacred political creed of his youth 
The century which he was born to de- 
nied 
All realization. Its generous pride 
To degenerate protest on all things was 

sunk ; 
Its principles each to a prejudice shrunk. 
Down the path of a life that led no- 
where he trod. 
Where his whims were his guides, and 

his will was his god, 
And his pastime his purpose. 

From boyhood possessed 
Of inherited wealth, he had learned to 

invest 
Both his wealth and those passions wealth 

frees from the cage 
Which penury locks, in each vice of an 

age 
All the virtues of which, by the creed 

he revered. 
Were to him illegitimate. 

Thus, he appeared 



60 



LUCILE. 



To the world what the world chose to 
have him appear, — 

The frivolous tyrant of Fashion, a 
mere 

Reformer in coats, cards, and carriages ! 
Still 

'T was this vigor of nature, and tension 
of will, 

That found for the first time — perchance 
for the last — 

In Lucile what they lacked yet to free 
from the Past, 

Force, and faith, in the Future. 

And so, in his mind. 

To the anguish of losing the woman was 
joined 

The terror of missing his life's destina- 
tion, 

Which in her had its mystical repre- 
sentation. 



And truly, the thought of it, scaring 
him, passed 

O'er his heart, while he now through the 
twilight rode fast. 

As a shade from the wing of some great 
bird obscene 

In a wide silent land may be suddenly 
seen. 

Darkening over the sands, where it 
startles and scares 

Some traveller strayed in the waste un- 
awares, 

So that thought more than once darkened 
over his heart 

For a moment, and rapidly seemed to 
depart. 

Fast and furious he rode through the 
thickets which rose 

Up the shaggy hillside : and the quarrel- 
ling crows 

Clanged above him, and clustering down 
the dim air 

Dropped into the dark woods. By fits 
here and there 

Shepherd fires faintly gleamed from the 
valleys. 0, how 

He envied the wings of each wild bird, 
as now 

He urged the steed over the dizzy as- 
cent 

Of the mountain ! Behind him a mur- 
mur was sent 

From the torrent, — before him a sound 
from the tracts 



Of the woodlands that waved o'er the 

wild cataracts. 
And the loose earth and loose stones 

rolled momently down 
From the hoofs of his steed to abysses 

unknown. 
The red day had fallen beneath the black 

woods, 
And the Powers of the night through 

the vast solitudes 
"Walked abroad and conversed with each 

other. The trees 
Were in sound and in motion, and mut- 
tered like seas 
In Elfland. The road through the for- 
est was hollowed. 
On he sped through the darkness, as 

though he were followed 
Fast, fast by the Erl King ! 

The wild wizaid-worfc 
Of the forest at last opened sharp, o'er 

the fork 
Of a savage ravine, and behind the black 

stems 
Of the last trees, whose leaves in the 

light gleamed like gems. 
Broke the broad moon above the volu- 
minous 
Rock-chaos, — the Hecate of that Tar- 
tarus I 
With his horse reeking white, he at last 

reached the door 
Of a small mountain inn, on the brow 

of a hoar 
Craggy promontory, o'er a fissure as 

grim, 
Through which, ever roaring, there 

leaped o'er the limb 
Of the rent rock a torrent of water, from 

sight, 
Into pools that were feeding the roots 

of the night. 
A balcony hung o'er the water. Aljove 
In a glimmering casement a shade 

seemed to move. 
At the door the old negress was nodding 

her head 
As he reached it. '' My mistress awaits 

you," she said. 
And up the rude stairway of creaking 

pine rafter 
He followed her silent. A few moments 

after. 
His heart almost stunned him, his head 

seemed to reel. 
For a door closed — Luvois was alone 

with Lucile. 



LUCILE. 



61 



In a gray travelling dress, her dark hair 

tinconfined 
Streaming o'er it, and tossed now and 

tlien by the wind 
From the lattice, that waved the dull 

flame in a spire 
From a brass lamp before her, — a faint 

hectic lire 
On her cheek, to her eyes lent the lustre 

of fever. 
They seemed to have wept themselves 

wider than ever. 
Those dark eyes, — so dark and so deep ! 
"You relent? 
And your plans have been changed by 

the letter I sent ? " 
There his voice sank, borne down by a 

strong inward strife. 

LuciLE. 
Your letter ! yes, Duke. For it threat- 
ens man's life, — 
Woman's honor. 

Ltjvois. 
The last, madam, not ! 

LuciLE. 

Both. I glance 

At your own words ; blush, son of the 
knighthood of France, 

As I read them ! You say in this let- 
ter .. . 

" I know 

Why now you refuse me ; 't is (is it not 
so ?) 

For the man who has trifled before, wan- 
tonly. 

And now trifles agaitl with the heart yoic 
deny '■ . . , 

To myself. But he, shall not! By man's 
last wild law, 

I mil seize on the .right (the right, Due 
de Luvois !) 

To avenge for you, woman, the past, and 
to give . 

To the future .its freedom. That man 
shall not live 

To make you as wretched as you have 
made me .'" 

Luvois. 
"Well, madam, in those words what word 

do you' see 
That threatens the honor of woman ? 



LuciLE. 

See ! . . . what. 
What word, do you ask ? Every word ! , 

would you not, 
Had I taken your hand thus, have felt 

that your name 
Was soUed and dishonored by more than 

mere shame 
If the woman that bore it had first been 

the- cause 
Of the crime which in these words is 

menaced ? You pause ! 
Woman's honor, you ask ? Is there, sir, 

no dishonor 
In the smile of a woman, when men, 

gazing on her. 
Can shudder, and say, "In that smile 

is a grave " ? 
No ! you can have no caiise, Duke, for 

no right you have 
In the contest you menace. That con- 
test but draws 
Every right into ruin. By all human 

laws 
Of man's heart I forbid it, by all sancti- 
ties 
Of man's social honor ! 

The Duke drooped his eyes. 
" I obey you," he said, ,''but let woman 

beware 
How she plays fast and loose thus with 

: human despair, - 
And the storm in man's heart. Madam, 

yours was the right, 
When you saw that I hoped, to extinguish 

hope quite. 
But you should from the first have done 

this, for 1 feel 
That you knew from the first that I 

loved you." 

Lutile 
This sudden reproach seemed to startle. 
She raised 
A slow, wistful regard to his features, 

and gazed 
On them silent awhile. His own looks 

■were downcast. 
Through her heart, whence its first wild 

alarm was now passed, 
Pity crept, and perchance o'er her con- 
science a tear. 
Falling softly, awoke it. 

However severe, 
Were they iinjust, these sudden up- 

braidings, to her ? 
Had she lightly misconstrued this man's 

character. 



62 



LUCILE. 



"Wliicli had seemed, even when most im- 
passioned it seemed, 
Too self-conscious to lose all in love ? 

Had she deemed 
That this airy, gay, insolent man of the 

world, 
So proud of the place the world gave 

him, held furled 
In his bosom no passion which once 

shaken wide 
Might tug, till it snapped, that erect 

lofty pride ? 
"Were those elements in him, which once 

roused to strife 
Overthrow a whole nature, and change 

a whole life ? 
There are two kinds of strength. One, 

the strength of the river 
Which through continents pushes its 

pathway forever 
To fling its fond heart in the sea ; if it 

lose 
This, the aim of its life, it is lost to its 

use, 
It goes mad, is diffused into deluge, and 

dies. 
The other, the strength of the sea ; which 

supplies 
Its deep life from mysterious sources, and 

draws 
The river's life into its own life, by laws 
"Which it heeds not. The difference in 

each case is this : 
The river is lost, if the ocean it miss ; 
If the sea miss the river, what matter ? 

The sea 
Is the sea still, forever. Its deep heart 

will be 
Self-sufficing, unconscious of loss as of 

yore; 
Its sources ate infinite ; still to the 

shore, 
"With no diminirtion of pride, it will say, 
" I am here ; I, the sea ! stand aside, 

and make way ! " 
"Was his love, then, the love of the 

river 1 and she. 
Had she taken that love for the love of 

the sea ? 



At that thought, from her aspect what- 
ever had been 

Stem or haughty departed ; and, hum- 
bled in mien. 

She approached him, and brokenly mur- 
mured, as though 



To herself more than him, ""\;\''as I 

wrong ? is it so ? 
Hear me, Duke ! you must feel that, 

whatever you deem 
Your right to reproach me in this, your 

esteem 
I may claim on one ground, — I at least 

am sincere. 
You say that to me from the first it was 

clear 
That you loved me. But what if this 

knowledge were known 
At a moment in life when I felt most 

alone. 
And least able to be so ? A moment, in 

fact. 
When I strove from one haunting regret 

to retract 
And emancipate life, and once more to 

fulfil 
Woman's destinies, duties, and hopes ? 

would you still 
So bitterly blame me, Eugene de Luvois, 
If I hoped to see all this, or deemed that 

I saw 
For a moment the promise of this, in the 

plighted 
Affection of one who, in nature, united 
So much that from others affection might 

claim, 
If only affection were free ? Do you 

blame 
The hope of that moment ? I deemed 

my heart free 
From all, saving sorrow. I deemed that 

in me 
There was yet strength to mould it once 

more to my will. 
To uplift it once more to my hope. Do 

you still 
Blame me, Duke, that I did not then 

bid you refrain 
From hope ? alas ! I too then hoped ! " 

LUTOIS. 

0, again, 
Yet again , say that thrice-blessed word ! 

say, Lucile, 
That you then deigned to hope — 

LtrciLE. 

Yes ! to hope I could feel, 
And could give to you, that Avithout 

which, all else given 
Were but to deceive, and to injure you 

even : — 



LUCILE. 



63 



A heart free from thoughts of another. 

Say, then, 
Do you blame that one hope ? 

Luvois. 
Lucile ! 

"Say again," 
She resumed, gazing down, and with 

faltering tone, 
" Do yon blame me that, when I at last 

had to own 
To my heart tliat the hope it had cher- 
ished was o'er, 
And forever, I said to you then, • Hope 

no aaore ' ? 
I myself hoped no more ! " 

With but ill-suppressed wrath 
The Duke answered ..." What, then ! 

he recrosses your path 
This man, and you have but to see him, 

despite 
Of his troth to another, to take back 

that light 
Worthless heart to your own, which he 

wronged years ago ! " 
Lucile faintly, brokenly murmured, . . . 

"No ! no ! 
'T is not that — but alas ! — but I can- 
not conceal 
That I have not forgotten the past — 

but I feel 
That I cannot accept all these gifts on 

your part, — 
In return for what . . . ah, Duke, what 

is it ? ... a heart 
Which is only a ruin ! " 

With words warm and wild, 
"Though a ruin it be, trust me yet to 

rebuild 
And restore it," Luvois cried ; "though 

ruined it be. 
Since so dear is that ruin, ah, yield it 

to me ! " 
He approached her. She shrank back. 

The grief in her eyes 
Answered, "No ! " 

An emotion more fierce seemed to rise 
And to break into flame, as though fired 

by the light 
Of that look, in his heart. He exclaimed, 

"Am I right? 
You reject me ! accept Mm ? " 

" 1 have not done so," 
She said firmly. He hoarsely resumed, 

"Not yet, — no! 



But can you with accents as firm promise 

me 
That you will not accept him ? " 

' ' Accept ? Is he free ? 
Free to offer ? " she said. 

"You evade me, Lucile," 
He replied; "ah, you will not avow 

what you feel ! 
He might make himself free ? 0, you 

blush, — turn away ! 
Dare you openly look in my face, lady, 

say! 
While you deign to reply to one question 

from me ? 
I may hope not, you tell me : but tell 

me, may he ? 
What ! silent ? I alter my question. 

If quite 
Freed in faith from this troth, might he 

hope then ? " 

"He might," 
She said softly. 



Those two whispered words, in his 

breast, 
As he heard them, in one maddening 

moment releast 
All that 's evil and fierce in man's nature, 

to crush 
And extinguish in man all that 's good. 

In the rush 
Of wild jealousy, all the fierce passions 

that waste 
And darken and devastate intellect, 

chased 
From its realm human reason. The wild 

animal 
In the bosom of man was set free. And 

of all 
Human passions the fiercest, fierce jeal- 

ousj'', fierce 
As the fire, and more wild than the 

whirlwind, to pierce 
And to rend, rushed upon him ; fierce 

jealousy, swelled 
By all passions bred from it, and ever 

impelled 
To involve all things else in the anguish 

within it. 
And on others inflict its own pangs ! 

At that minute 
What passed through his mind, who 

shall say ? who may tell 
The dark thoughts of man's heart, which 

the red glare of hell 
Can illumine alone ? 



64 



LUCILE. 



He stared wildly around 
That lone place, so lonely ! That silence ! 

no sound 
Eeached that room, through the dark 

evening air, save the drear 
Drip and roar of the cataract ceaseless 

and near ! 
It was midnight all round on the weird 

silent weather ; 
Deep midnight in him ! They two, — 

lone and together. 
Himself, and that woman defenceless 

before him ! 
The triumph and bliss of his rival flashed 

o'er him. 
The abyss of his own black despair seemed 

to ope 
At his feet, with that awful exclusion of 

hope 
"Which Dante read over the city of doom. 
All the Tarquin passed into his soul in 

the gloom, 
And, uttering words he dared never re- 
call, 
"Words of insult and menace, he thim- 

dered down all 
The brewed storm-cloud within him: 

its flashes scorched blind 
His own senses. His spirit was driven 

on the wind 
Of a reckless emotion beyond his con- 
trol ; 
A torrent seemed loosened within hira. 

His soul 
Surged up from that caldron of passion 

that hissed 
And seethed in his heart. 



He had thrown, and had missed 
His last stake. 



For, transfigured, she rose from the 

place 
"Where he rested o'erawed : a saint's 

scorn on her face ; 
Such a dread vade retro was written in 

light 
On her forehead, the fiend would himself, 

at that sight. 
Have sunk back abashed to perdition. 

I know 
If Lucretia at Tarquin but once had 

looked so. 
She had needed no dagger next morning. 
She rose 



And swept to the door, like that phan- 
tom the snows 

Feel at nightfall sweep o'er them, when 
daylight is gone, 

And Caucasus is with the moon all alone. 

There she paused ; and, as though from 
immeasurable, 

Insurpassable distance, she murmured — 
"Farewell ! 

"W^e, alas ! have mistaken each other. 
Once more 

Illusion, to-night, in my lifetime is o'er. 

Due de Luvois, adieu ! " 

From the heart-breaking gloom 

Of that vacant, reproachful, and desolate 
room, 

He felt she was gone, — gone forever ! 



No word, 
The sharpest that ever was edged like 

a sword, 
Could have pierced to his heart with 

such keen accusation 
As the silence, the sudden profound 

isolation. 
In which he remained. 

" 0, return ; I repent ! " 
He exclaimed ; but no sound tlii'ough 

the stillness was sent. 
Save the roar of the water, in answer to 

him, 
Andthebeetlethat, sleeping, yethummed 

her night-hymn : 
An indistinct anthem, that troubled the 

air 
"With a searching, and wistful, and ques- 
tioning prayer. 
"Return," sung the wandering, insect. 

The roar 
Of the waters replied, "Nevermore ! 

nevermore ! " 
He walked to the window. The spray 

on his brow 
"Was flung cold from the whirlpools of 

water below ; 
The frail wooden balcony shook in the 

sound 
Of the torrent. The mountains gloomed 

sullenly round. 
A candle one ray from a closed casement 

flung. 
O'er the dim balustrade all bewildered 

he hung, 
"Vaguely watching the broken and shim- 
mering blink 



LUCILE. 



65 



Of the stars on the veering and vitreous 
brink 

Of that snake-like prone column of wa- 
ter ; and listing 

Aloof o'er the languors of air the persist- 
ing 

Sharp horn of the gray gnat. Before he 
relinquished 

His unconscious employment, that light 
was extinguished. 

Wheels, at last, from the inn door 
aroused him. He ran 

Down the stairs ; reached the door — 
just to see her depart. 

Down the mountain tjfie carriage was 
speeding. 

• X. 

His heart 
Pealed the knell of its last hope. He 

rushed on ; but whither 
He knew not — on, into the dark cloudy 

Aveather — 
The midnight — the mountains — on, 

over the shelf 
Of the precipice — on, still — away from 

himself ! 
Till, exhausted, he sank 'mid the dead 

leaves and moss 
At the mouth of the forest. A glim- 
mering cross 
Of gray stone stood for prayer by the 

woodside. He sank 
Prayerless, powerless, down at its base, 

'mid the dank 
"Weeds and grasses ; his face hid amongst 

them. He knew 
That the night had divided his whole 

life in two. 
Behind him a Past that was over for- 
ever ; 
Before him a Future devoid of endeavor 
And purpose. He felt a remorse for the 

one, 
Of the other a fear. What remained to 

be done ? 
Whither' now should he turn ? Turn 

again, as before. 
To his old easy, careless existence of yore 
He could not. He felt that for better 

or worse 
A change had passed o'er him ; an angry 

remorse 
Of his own frantic failure and error had 

marred 
Such a refuge forever. The future 

seemed barred 



By the corpse of a dead hope o'er which 

he must tread 
To attain it. Life's wilderness round 

him was spread. 
What clew there to cling by ? 

He clung by a name 
To a dynasty fallen forever. He came 
Of an old princely house, true through 

change to the race 
And the sword of Saint Louis, — a faith 

'twere disgrace 
To relinquish, and folly to live for ! 

Nor less 
Was his ancient religion (once potent to 

bless 
Or to ban ; and the crozier his ancestors 

kneeled 
To adore, when they fought for the 

Cross, in hard field. 
With the Crescent) become, ere it 

reached him, tradition ; 
A mere faded badge of a social posi- 
tion ; 
A thing to retain and say nothing about, 
Lest, if used, it should draw degradation 

from doubt. 
Thus, the first time he sought them, the 

creeds of his youth 
Wholly failed the strong needs of his 

manhood, in truth ! 
And beyond them, what region of ref- 
uge ? what field 
For employment, this civilized age, did 

it yield, 
In that civilized land ? or to thought 1 

or to action ? 
Blind deliriums, bewildered and endless 

distraction ! 
Not even a desert, not even the cell 
Of a hermit to flee to, wherein he might 

quell 
The wild devil-instincts which now, irn- 

represt. 
Ran riot through that ruined world in 

his breast. 



So he lay there, like Lucifer, fresh from 

the sight 
Of a heaven scaled and lost ; in the wide 

amis of night 
O'er the howling abysses of nothingness ! 

There 
As he lay, Nature's deep voice was 

teaching him prayer ; 
But what had he to pray to ? 

The winds in the woods 



66 



LUCILE. 



The voices abroad o'er those vast soli- 
tudes, 
Were in commune all round with the 

invisible Power 
That walked the dim world by Himself 

at that hour. 
But their language he had not yet 

learned — in despite 
Of the much he had learned — or for- 
gotten it quite, 
With its once native accents. Alas ! 

what had he 
To add to that deep-toned sublime sym- 
phony 
Of thanksgiving ? . . . A fiery finger was 

still 
Scorching into his heart some dread sen- 
tence. His will. 
Like a wind that is put to no purpose, 

was wild 
At its work of destruction within him. 

The child 
Of an infidel age, he had been his own 

god, 
His own devil. 

He sat on the damp mountain sod. 

And stared sullenly up at the dark sky. 

The clouds 

Had heaped themselves over the bare 

west in crowds 
Of misshapen, incongruous portents. A 

green 
Streak of dreary, cold, luminous ether, 

between 
The base of their black barricades, and 

the ridge 
Of the grim world, gleamed ghastly, as 

under some bridge, 
Cyclop-sized, in a city of ruins o'er- 

thrown 
By sieges forgotten, some river, unknown 
And unnamed, widens on into desolate 

lands. 
While he gazed, that cloud-city invisible 

hands 
Dismantled and rent ; and revealed, 

through a loop 
In the breached dark, the blemished and 

half-broken hoop 
Of the moon, which soon silently sank ; 

and anon 
The whole supernatural pageant was 

gone. 
The wide night, discomforted, conscious 

of loss. 
Darkened round him. One object alone 

-^ that gray cross — 



Glimmered faint on the dark. Gazing 

up, he descried 
Through the void air, its desolate ai-mS 

outstretched wide. 
As though to embrace him. 

He turned from the sight, 
Set his face to the darkness, and fled. 



When the light 
Of the dawn grayly flickered and glared 

on the spent 
Wearied ends of the night, like a hope 

that is sent 
To the need of some grief when its need 

is the sorest, 
He was sullenly riding across the dark 

forest 
Toward Serchon. 

Thus riding, with eyes of defiance 
Set against the young day, as disclaim- 
ing alliance 
With aught that the day brings to man, 

he perceived 
Faintly, suddenly, fleetingly, through 

the damp-leaved 
Autumn branches that put forth gaunt 

arms on his way. 
The face of a man pale and wistful, and 

gray 
With the gray glare of morning. Eu- 
gene de Luvois, 
With the sense of a strange second-sight, 

when he saw 
That phantom-like face, could at once 

recognize. 
By the sole instinct now left to guide 

him, the eyes 
Of Iris rival, though fleeting the vision 

and dim, 
With a stem sad inquiry fixed keenly 

on him. 
And, to meet it, a lie leaped at once to 

his own ; 
A lie born of that lying darkness now 

grown 
Over all in his nature ! He answered 

■ that gaze 
With a look which, if ever a man's look 

conveys 
More intensely than words what a man 

means, conveyed 
Beyond doubt in its smile an announce- 
ment which said, 
" I have triumphed. The question your 

eyes would imply 
Comes too late, Alfred Vargrave!" 



LUCILE. 



67 



And so he rode by, 
And rode on, and rode gayly, and rode 

out of sight, 
Leaving that look behind him to rankle 

and bite. 

XIII. 
And it bit, and it rankled. 

^/^^ XIV. 

Lord Alfred, scarce knowing, 
Or choosing, or heeding the way he was 

going, 
By one wild hope impelled, by one wild 

fear pursued. 
And led by one instinct, which seemed 

to excjjide 
From his mind every human sensation, 

save one — 
The torture of doubt — had strayed 

moodily on, 
Down the highway deserted, that even- 
ing in which 
"With the Duke he had parted ; strayed 

on, through the rich 
Haze of sunset, or into the gradual 

night, 
Which darkened, unnoticed, the land 

from his sight. 
Toward Saint Saviour ; nor did the 

changed aspect of all 
The wild scenery round him avail to 

recall 
To his senses their normal perceptions, 

until, 
As he stood on the black shaggy brow 

of the hill 
At the mouth of the forest, the moon, 

which had hung 
Two dark hours in a cloud, slipped on 

fire from among 
^..'he rent vapors, and sunk o'er the ridge 
^ of the world. 

Then he lifted his eyes, and saw round 

him unfurled. 
In one moment of splendor, the leagues 

of dark trees. 
And the long rocky line of the wild 

Pyrenees. 
And he knew by the milestone scored 

rough on the face 
Of the bare rock, he was but two hours 

from the place 
Where Lucile and Luvois must have 

met. This same track 
The Duke must have traversed, perforce, 

to get back 



To Serchon ; not yet then the Duke had 

returned ! 
He listened, he looked up the dark, but 

discerned 
Not a trace, not a sound of a horse by 

the way. 
He knew that the night was approaching 

to day. 
He resolved to proceed to Saint Saviour. 

The morn 
Which, at last, through the forest broke 

chill and forlorn, 
Revealed to him, riding toward Serchon, 

the Duke. 
'T was then that the two men exchanged 

look for look. 

XV. 

And the Duke's rankled in him. 

XVI. 

He rushed on. He tore 
His path through the thicket. He reached 

the inn door. 
Roused the yet drowsing porter, reluctant 

to rise, 
And inquired for th e Countess. The man 

rubbed his eyes. 
The Countess was gone. And the Duke ? 
The man stared 
A sleepy inquiry. 

With accents that scared 
The man's dull sense awake, " He, the 

stranger," he cried, 
" Who had been there that night ! " 

The man grinned and replied, 
With a vacant intelligence, "He, ay, 

ay ! 
He went after the lady." 

No further reply 
Could he give. Alfred Vargrave de- 
manded no more, 
Flung a coin to the man, and so turned 

from the door. 
" What ! the Duke then the night in 

that lone inn had passed '! 
In that lone inn — with her ! " Was 

that look he had cast 
When they met in the forest, that look 

which remained 
On his mind with its terrible smile, thus 

explained ? 



The day was half turned to the evening, 
before 



68 



LUCILE. 



He re-entered Serchon, with a heart sick 

and sore. 
In the midst of a light crowd of babblers, 

his look, 
By their voices attracted, distinguished 

the Duke, 
Gay, insolent, noisy, with eyes sparkling 

bright, 
With laughter, shrill, airy, continuous. 

Eight 
Through the throng Alfred Vargrave, 

with swift sombre stride. 
Glided on. The Duke noticed him, 

turned, stepped aside. 
And, cordially grasping his hand, whis- 
pered low, 
" 0, how right have you been ! There 

can never be — no, 
Never — any more contest between us ! 

Milord, 
Let us henceforth be friends ! " 

Having uttered that word. 
He turned lightly round on his heel, 

and again 
His gay laughter was heard, echoed loud 

by that train 
Of his young imitators. 

Lord Alfred stood still, 
Eooted, stunned to the spot. He felt 

weary and ill. 
Out of heart with his own heart, and 

sick to the soul. 
With a dull, stifling anguish he could 

not control. - 
Does he hear in a dream, through the 

buzz of the crowd. 
The Duke's blithe associates, babbling 

aloud 
Some comment upon his gay humor that 

day? 
He never was gayer : what makes him 

so gay ? 
'T is, no doubt, say the flatterers, flat- 
tering in tune, 
Some vestal whose virtue no tongue dare 

impugn 
Has at last found a Mars, — who, of 

course, shall be nameless. 
The vestal that yields to Mars only is 

blameless ! 
Hark ! hears he a name which, thus 

syllabled, stirs 
All his heart into tumult ? . . . Lucile 

de Nevers 
With the Duke's coupled gayly, in some 

laughing, light, 



Free allusion ? Not so as might give 

him the right 
To turn fiercely round on the speaker, 

but yet 
To a trite and irreverent compliment 

set! 

XVIII. 

Slowly, slowly, usurping that place in 
his soul 

Where the thought of Lucile was en- 
shrined, did there roll 

Back again, back again, on its smooth 
downward course 

O'er his nature, withgatheredmomentum 
and force. 

The world. 



" No ! " he muttered, " she cannot have 

sinned ! 
True ! women there are (self-named 

women of mind !) 
Who love rather liberty — liberty, yes ! 
To choose and to leave — than the legal- 
ized stress 
Of the lovingest marriage. But she — 

is she so ? 
I will not believe it. Lucile ? no, 

no ! 
Not Lucile ! 

" But the world ? and, ah, what would 

it say ? 
the look of that man, and his laughter, 

to-day ! 
The gossip's light question ! the slan- 
derous jest ! 
She is right ! no, we could not be happy. 

'T is best 
As it is. I will write to her, — write, 

my heart ! 

And accept her farewell. Our farewell ! 

must we part, — 
Part thus, then, — forever, Lucile ? Is 

it so ? 
Yes ! I feel it. We could not be happy, 

1 know. 

'T was a dream ! we must waken ! " 



With head bowed, as though 
By the weight of the heart's resignation, 

and slow t 

Moody footsteps, he turned to his inn. 

Drawn apart 
From the gate, in the court-yard, and 
ready to start, 



LUCILE. 



69 



Postboys mounted, portmanteaus packed 

up and made fast, 
A travelling-carriage, unnoticed, lie 

passed. 
He ordered his horse to be ready anon : 
Sent, and paid, for the reckoning, and 

slowly passed on, 
And ascended the staircase, and entered 

his room. 
It was twilight. The chamber was dark 

in the gloom 
Of the evening. He listlessly kindled 

a light. 
On the mantel-piece ; there a large card 

caught his sight, — 
A large card, a stout card, well printed 

and jjain, 
Nothing flourishing, flimsy, aff'ected, or 

vain. 
It gave a respectable look to the slab 
That it lay on. The name was — 



Sir Ridley MacNab. 



Full familiar to him was the name that 

he saw, 
For 't was that of his own future uncle- 

in-law, 
Mrs, Darcy's rich brother, the banker, 

well known 
As wearing the longest-phylacteried 

gown 
Of all the rich Pharisees England can 

boast of ; 
A shrewd Puritan Scot, whose sharp 

wits made the most of 
This world and the next ; having largely 

invested 
Not only where treasure is never mo- 
lested 
By thieves, moth, or rust ; but on this 

earthly ball 
Where interest was high, and security 

small. 
Of mankind there was never a theory 

yet 
Not by some individual instance upset : 
And so to that sorrowful verse of the 

Psalm 



Which declares that the wicked expand 

like the palm * 
In a world where the righteous are 

stunted and pent, 
A cheering exception did Eidley pre- 
sent. 
Like the worthy of Uz, Heaven prospered 

his piety. 
The leader of every religious society, 
Christian knowledge he labored through 

life to promote 
With personal profit, and knew how to 

quote 
Both the Stocks and the Scripture, with 

equal advantage 
To himself and admiring friends, in this 

Cant-Age. 



Whilst over this card Alfred vacantly 

brooded, 
4. waiter his head through the doorway 

protruded ; 
" Sir Eidley MacNab with Milord wished 

to speak." 
Alfred Vargrave could feel there were 

tears on his cheek ; 
He brushed them away with a gesture 

of pride. 
He glanced at the glass ; when his own 

face he eyed. 
He was scared by its pallor. Inclining 

his head, 
He with tones calm, unshaken, and sil- 
very, said, 
"Sir Ridley may enter." 

In three minutes more 
That benign apparition appeared at the 

door. 
Sir Ridley, released for a while from the 

cares 
Of business, and minded to breathe the 

pure airs 
Of the blue Pyrenees, and enjoy his re- 



in company there with his sister and 
niece. 

Found himself now at Serchon, — dis- 
tributing tracts, 

Sowing seed by the way, and collecting 
new facts 

For Exeter Hall ; he was starting that 
night 

For Bigorre : he had heard, to his cordial 
delight, 

That Lord Alfred was there, and, him- 
self, setting out 



70 



LUCILE. 



For the samB destination : impatient, 

no doubt ! 
Here some commonplace compliments as 

to "the marriage " 
Through his speech trickled softly, like 

honey : his carriage 
Was ready. A storm seemed to threaten 

the weather : 
If his young friend agreed, why not 

travel together ? 

With a footstep uncertain and restless, 

a frown 
Of perplexity, during this speech, up 

and down 
Alfred Vargrave was striding ; but, after 

a pause 
And a slight hesitation, the which seemed 

to cause 
Some surprise to Sir Ridley, he answered, 

— "My dear 
Sir Eidley, allow me a few moments 

here — 
Half an hour at the most — to conclude 

an affair 
Of a nature so urgent as hardly to spare 
My presence (which brought me, indeed, 

to this spot), 
Before I accept your kind offer." 

"Why not?" 
Said Sir Ridley, and smiled. Alfred 

Vargrave, before 
Sir Eidley observed it, had passed through 

the door. 
A few moments later, with footsteps re- 
vealing 
Intense agitation of uncontrolled feel- 
ing, 
He was rapidly pacing the garden below. 
What passed through his mind then is 

more than I know. 
But before one half-hour into darkness 

had fled. 
In the courtyard he stood with Sir Eid- 
ley. His tread 
Was firm and composed. Not a sign on 

his face 
Betrayed there the least agitation. ' ' The 

place 
You so kindly have offered," he said, "I 

accept. " 
And he stretched out his hand. The 

two travellers stepped 
Smiling into the carriage. 

And thus, o\it of sight, 
They drove down the dark road, and 

into the night. 



Sir Ridley was one of those wise men 

who, so far 
As their power of saying it goes, say 

with Zophar, 
"We," no doubt, are the people, and 

wisdom shall die with us ! " 
Though of wisdom like theirs there is no 

small supply with us. 
Side by side in the carriage ensconced, 

the two men 
Began to, converse, somewhat drowsily, 

when 
Alfred suddenly thought, — "Here's a 

man of ripe age, 
At my side, by his fellows reputed as 

sage, 
Who looks happy, and therefore who 

must have been wise : 
Suppose I with caution reveal to his 

eyes 
Some few of the reasons which make me 

believe 
That I neither am happy nor wise ? 

't would relieve 
And enlighten, perchance, my own dark- 
ness and doubt." 
For which purpose a feeler he softly put 

out. 
It was snapped up at once. 

" What is truth ? " jesting Pilate 
Asked, and passed from the question at 

once with a smile at 
Its utter futility. Had he addressed it 
To Ridley MacNab, he at least had con- 
fessed it 
Admitted discussion ! and certainly no 

man 
Could more promptly have answered the 

sceptical Roman 
Than Ridley. Hear some street astrono- 
mer talk ! 
Grant him two or three hearers, a morsel 

of chalk. 
And forthwith on the pavement he'll 

sketch you the scheme 
Of the heavens. Then hear him en- 
large on his theme ! 
Not afraid of La Place, nor of Arago, he ! 
He '11 prove you the whole plan in plain 

ABC. ,- 

Here 's your sun, — call him A ; B 's the 

moon ; it is clear 
How the rest of the alphabet brings up 

the rear 
Of the planets. Now ask Arago, ask 

La Place, 



LUCILE. 



71 



(Your sages, who speak with the heavens 

face to face !) 
Their science in plain A B c to accord 
To your point-blank inquiry, my friends ! 

not a word 
Will you get for your pains from their 

sad lips. Alas ! 
Not a drop from the bottle that 's quite 

full will pass. 
'T is the half-empty vessel that freest 

emits 
The water that 's in it. 'T is thus with 

men's wits ; 
Or at least with their knowledge. A 

man's capability 
Of imparting to others a truth with 

facility 
Is proportioned forever with painful 

exactness 
To the portable nature, the vulgar com- 
pactness, 
The minuteness in size, or the lightness 

in weight 
Of the truth he imparts. So small coins 

circulate 
More freely than large ones. A beggar 

asks alms. 
And we fling him a sixpence, nor feel 

any qualms ; 
■IBut if every street charity shook an 

investment. 
Or each beggar to clothe we must strip 

off" a vestment, 
The length of the process would limit 

the act ; 
And therefore the truth that 's summed 

up in a tract 
Is most lightly dispensed. 

As for Alfred, indeed, 
On what spoonfuls of truth he was suf- 
fered to feed 
By Sir Eidley, I know not. This only 

I know, 
That the two men thus talking contin- 
ued to go 
Onward somehow, together, — on into 

the night, — 
The midnight, — in which they escape 

from our sight. 

XXIII. 

And meanwhile av^orld had been changed 

in its place. 
And those glittering chains that o'er 

blue balmy space 
Hang the blessing of darkness, had drawn 

out of sight, 



To solace unseen hemispheres, the soft 

night ; 4^ 

And the dew of the dayspring benignly 

descended, 
And the fair morn to all things new sanc- 
tion extended, 
In the smile of the East. And the lark 

soaring on, 
Lost in light, shook the dawn with a 

song from the sun. 
And the world laughed. 

It wanted but two rosy hours 
From the noon, when they passed through 

the thick passion-flowers 
Of the little wild garden that dimpled 

before 
The small house where their carriage 

now stopped, at Bigorre. 
And more fair than the flowers, more 

fresh than the dew. 
With her white morning robe flitting 

joyously through 
The dark shrubs with which the soft 

hillside was clothed, 
Alfred Vargrave perceived, where he 

paused, his betrothed. 
Matilda sprang to him, at once, with a 

face 
Of such sunny sweetness, such gladness, 

such grace, 
And radiant confidence, childlike delight. 
That his whole heart upbraided itself at 

that sight. 
And he murmured, or sighed, " 0, how 

could I have strayed 
From this sweet child, or suffered in 

aught to invade 
Her young claim on my life, though it 

were for an hour, 
The thought of another ? " 

" Look up, my sweet flower ! " 
He whispered her softly, "my heart 

unto thee 
Is returned, as returns to the rose the 

wild bee ! " 
"And will wander no more?" laughed 

Matilda. 

"'No more," 
He repeated. And, low to himself, 

" Yes, 'tis o'er ! 
My course, too, is decided, Lucile ! 

Was I blind 
To have dreamed that these clever French- 
women of mind 
Could satisfy simply a plain English 

heart, 
Or sympathize with it ? " 



72 



LUCILE. 



XXIV. 

J&id here the first part 
Of this drama is over. The curtain falls 

furled 
On the actors within it, — the Heart and 

the World. 
Wooed and wooer have played with the 

riddle of life, — 
Have they solved it ? 
Appear ! answer, Husband and Wife ! 



Yet, ere bidding farewell to Lucile de 

Nevers, 
Hear her own heart's farewell in this 

letter of hers. 

The CoMTESSE DE Nevers to a Feiend 
IN India. 

" Once more, my friend, to your arms 

and your heart, 
And the places of old . . . never, never 

to part ! 
Once more to the palm and the fountain ! 

Once more 
To the land of my birth, and the deep 

ekies of yore ! 
From the cities of Europe, pursued by 

the fret 
Of their turmoil wherever my footsteps 

are set ; 
From the children that cry for the birth, 

and behold, 
There is no strength to bear them, — old 

Time is so old ! 
From the world's weary masters, that 

come upon earth 
Sapped and mined by the fever they 

bear from their birth ; 
From the men of small stature, mere 

parts of a crowd, 
Bom too late, when the strength of the 

world hath been bowed ; 
Back, — back to the Orient, from whose 

sunbright womb 
Sprang the giants which now are no 

more, in the bloom 
And the beauty of times that are faded 

forever ! 
To the palms ! to the tombs ! to the 

still Sacred Eiver ! 
Where I too, the child of a day that is 

done, 
First leapt into life, and looked up at 

the sun. -^ 

\S 



Back again, back again, to the hill-tops 

of home 
I come, my friend, my consoler, I 

come ! 
Are the three intense stars, that we 

watched night by night 
Burning broad on the band of Orion,- as 

bright ? 
Are the large Indian moons as serene as 

of old. 
When, as children, we gathered the 

moonbeams for gold ? 
Do you yet recollect me, my friend ? Do 

you still 
Eemember the free games we played on 

the hill, 
'Mid those huge stones upheaped, where 

we recklessly trod 
O'er the old ruined fane of the old ruined 

god? 
How he frowned, while around him we 

carelessly played ! 
That frown on my life ever after hath 

stayed. 
Like the shade of a solemn experience 

upcast 
From some vague supernatural grief in 

the past. 
For the poor god, in pain, more than 

anger, he frowned. 
To perceive that our youth, though so 

fleeting, had found. 
In its transient and ignorant gladness, 

the bliss 
Which his science divine seemed divine- 
ly to miss. 
Alas ! you may haply remember me yet 
The free child, whose glad childhood 

myself I forget. 
I come — a sad woman, defrauded of 

rest : 
I bear to you only a laboring breast : 
My heart is a storm-beaten ark, wildly 

hurled 
O'er the whirlpools of time, with the 

wrecks of a world : 
The dove from my bosom hath flown far 

away : 
It is flown, and returns not, though 

many a day 
Have I watched from the windows of 

life for its coming. 
Friend, I sigh for repose, I am weary of 

roaming. 
I know not what Ararat rises for me 
Far away, o'er the waves of the wander- 
ing sea : 



LUCILE. 



73 



I know not what rainbow may yet, from 

far hills, 
Lift the promise of hope, the cessation 

of ills : 
But a voice, like the voice of my youth, 

in my breast 
"Wakes and whispers me on — to the 

East ! to the East ! 
Shall I find the child's heart that I left 

there ? or find 
The lost youth I recall with its pure 

peace of mind ? 
Alas ! who shall number the drops of 

the rain ? 
Or give to the dead leaves their greenness 

again 1 
Who shall seal up the caverns the earth- 
quake hath rent ? 
Who shall bring forth the winds that 

within them are pent ? 
To a voice who shall render an image ? 

or who 
From the heats of the noontide shall 

gather the dew ? 
I have burned out within me the fuel of 

life 
Wherefore lingers the flame ? Eest is 

sweet after strife. 
I would sleep for a while. I am weary. 
"My friend, 
I had meant in these lines to regather, 

and send 
To our old home, my life's scattered 

links. But 'tis vain ! 
Each attempt seems to shatter the chap-, 

let again ; 
Only fit now for fingers like mine to run 

o'er. 
Who return, a recluse, to those cloisters 

of yore 
Whence too far I have wandered. 

" How many long years 
Does it seem to me now since the quick, 

scorching tears, 
While I wrote to you, splashed out a 

girl's premature 
Moans of pain at what women in silence 

endure ! 
To your eyes, friend of mine, and to 

your eyes alone. 
That now long-faded page of my life hath 

been shown 
Which recorded my heart's birth, and 

death, as you know. 
Many years since, — how many ! 

" A few months ago 



I seemed reading it backward, that 

page ! Why explain 
Whence or how ? The old dream of my 

life rose again. 
The old superstition ! the idol of old ! 
It is over. The leaf trodden down in 

the mould 
Is not to the forest more lost than to 

me 
That emotion. I bury it here by the 

sea 
Which will bear me anon far away from 

the shore 
Of a land which my footsteps shall visit 

no more. 
And a heart's requiescat I write on that 

gi'ave. 
Hark ! the sigh of the wind, and the 

sound of the wave, 
Seem like voices of spirits that whisper 

me home ! 
I come, you whispering voices, I come! 
My friend, ask me nothing. 

" Receive me alone 
As a Santon receives to his dwelling of 

stone 
In silence some pilgrim the midnight 

may bring : 
It may be an angel that, weary of wing, 
Hath paused in his flight from some 

city of doom. 
Or only a wayfarer strayed in the gloom. 
This only I know : that in Europe at 

least 
Lives the craft or the power that must 

master our East. 
Wherefore strive where the gods must 

themselves yield at last ? 
Both the}'' and their altars pass by with 

the Past. 
The gods of the household Time thrusts 

from the shelf ; 
And I seem as unreal and weird to my- 
self 
As those idols of old. 

" Other times, other men, 
Other men, other passions ! 

" So be it ! yet again 
I turn to my birthplace, the birthplace 

of morn. 
And the light of those lands where the 

great sun is born ! 
Spread your arms, my friend ! on your 

breast let me feel 
The repose which hath fled from my own. 
"Your LuciLE." 



74 



LUCILK 



PAET II. 



CANTO I. 



Hail, Muse ! But each Muse by this 

time has, I know, 
Been used up, and Apollo has bent his 

own bow 
All too long ; 80 I leave unassaulted the 

portal 
Of Olympus, and only invoke here a 

mortal. 

Hail, Murray ! — not Lindley, — but 

Murray and Son. 
Hail, omniscient, beneficent, great Two- 

in-One ! 
In Albemarle Street may thy temple 

long stand ! 
Long enlightened and led by thine eru- 
dite hand. 
May each novice in science nomadic 

unravel 
Statistical mazes of modernized travel ! 
May each inn-keeping knave long thy 

judgments revere. 
And the postboys of Europe regard thee 

with fear ; 
While they feel, in the silence of baffled 

extortion, 
That knowledge is power ! Long, long, 

like that portion 
Of the national soil which the Greek 

exile took 
In his baggage wherever he went, may 

thy book 
Cheer each poor British pilgrim, who 

trusts to thy wit 
Not to pay through his nose just for 

following it ! 
Mayst thou long, instructor ! preside 

o'er his way. 
And teach him alike what to praise and 

to pay ! 
Thee, pursuing this pathway of song, 

once again 
I invoke, lest, unskilled, I should wan- 
der in vain. 
To my call be propitious, nor, churlish, 

refuse 
Thy great accents to lend to the lips of 

my Muse ; 



For I sing of the Naiads who dwell 'mid 

the stems 
Of the green linden-trees by the waters 

of Ems. 
Yes ! thy spirit descends upon mine, 

John Murray ! 
And I start — with thy book — for the 

Baths in a hurry. 

II. 

" At Coblentz a bridge of boats crosses 
the Rhine ; 

And from thence the road, winding by 
Ehrenbreitstein, 

Passes over the frontier of Nassau. 

("N. B. 

No custom-house here since the ZoU- 
verein." See 

Murray, paragraph 30.) 

" The route, at each turn, 

Here the lover of nature allows tp dis- 
cern, 

In varying prospect, a rich wooded dale : 

The vine and acacia-tree mostly prevail 

In the foliage observable here ; and, 
moreover. 

The soil is carbonic. The road, under 
cover 

Of the grape-clad and mountainous up- 
land that hems 

Round this beautiful spot, brings the 
traveller to — " EMS. 

A schnellpost from Frankfort arrives 
every day. 

At the Kurhaus (the old Ducal mansion) 
you pay 

Eight florins for lodgings. A Restaura- 
teur 

Is attached to the place ; but most trav- 
ellers prefer 

(Including, indeed, many persons of 
note) 

To dine at the usual-priced table d'h6te. 

Through the town runs the Lahn, the 
steep green banks of which 

Two rows of white picturesque houses 
enrich ; 

And between the high road and the 
river is laid 

Out a sort of a garden, called ' Thb 
Promenade. ' 



LUCILE. 



75 



Female visitors here, wlio may make up 
their mind 

To ascend to the top of these mountains, 
will find 

On the banks of the stream, saddled all 
the day long, 

Troops of donkeys — sure-footed — pro- 
verbially strong " ; 

And the traveller at Ems may remark, 
as he passes, 

Here, as elsewhere, the women run after 
the asses. 



'Mid the world's weary denizens bound 

for these springs 
In the month when the merle on the 

maple-bough sings, 
Pursued to the place from dissimilar 

paths 
By a similar sickness, there came to the 

baths 
Four sufferers, — each stricken deep 

through the heart. 
Or the head, by the self-same invisible 

dart 
Of the arrow that flieth unheard in the 

noon. 
From the sickness that walketh unseen 

in the moon. 
Through this great lazaretto of life, 

wherein each 
Infects with his own sores the next 

within reach. 
First of these were a young English hus- 
band and wife, 
Grown weary ere half through the jour- 
ney of life. 
Nature, say where, thou gray mother 

of earth. 
Is the strength of thy youth ? that thy 

womb brings to birth 
Only old men to-day ! On the winds, 

as of old. 
Thy voice in its accent is joyous and 

bold ; 
Thy forests are green as of yore ; and 

thine oceans 
Yet move in the might of their ancient 

emotions : 
But man — thy last birth and thy best 

— is no more 
Life's free lord, that looked up to the 

starlight of yore. 
With the faith on the brow, and the fire 

in the eyes, 



The firm foot on the earth, the high 

heart in the skies ; 
But a gray-headed infant, defrauded of 

youth, 
Born too late or too early. 

The lady, in truth, 
"Was young, fair, and gentle ; and never 

was given 
To more heavenly eyes the pure azure 

of heaven. 
Never yet did the sun touch to ripples 

of gold 
Tresses brighter than those which her 

soft hand unrolled 
From her noble and innocent brow, 

when she rose. 
An Aurora, at dawn, from her balmy 

repose. 
And into the mirror the bloom and the 

blush 
Of her beauty broke, glowing ; like light 

in a gush 
From the sunrise in summer. 

Love, roaming, shall meet 
But rarely a nature more sound or more 

sweet — - 
Eyes brighter — brows whiter — a figure 

more fair — 
Or lovelier lengths of more radiant hair — 
Than thine, Lady Alfred ! And here I 

aver 
(May those that have seen thee declare 

if I err) 
That not all the oysters in Britain contain 
A pearl pure as thou art. 

Let some one explain, — • 
Who may know more than I of the inti- 
mate life 
Of the pearl with the oyster, — why yet 

in his wife. 
In despite of her beauty — and most 

when he felt 
His soul to the sense of her loveliness 

melt — 
Lord Alfred missed something he sought 

for : indeed, 
The more that he missed it the greater 

the need ; 
Till it seemed to himself he could will- 
ingly spare 
All the charms that he found for the 
one charm not there. 



For the blessings Life lends us, it strictly 
demands 



76 



LUCILE. 




The worth of their full usufruct at our 

hands. 
And the value of all things exists, not 

indeed 
In themselves, but man's use of them, 

feeding man's need. 



Alfred Vargrave, in wedding with heauty 

and j'outh, 
Had embraced both Ambition and 

Wealth. Yet in truth 
Unfulfilled the ambition, and sterile the 

wealth 



LUCILE. 



77 



(Tn a life paralyzed by a moral ill-health), 
Had remained, while the heauty and 

youth, unredeemed 
From a vague disappointment at all 

things, but seemed 
Day by day to reproach him in silence 

for all 
That lost youth in himself they had failed 

to recall. 
No career had he followed, no object ob- 
tained 
In the world by those worldly advantages 

gained 
From nuptials beyond which once seemed 

to appear, 
Lit by love, the broad path of a brilliant 

carew. 
All that glittered and gleamed through 

the moonlight of youth 
With a gloiy so fair, now that manhood 

in truth 
Grasped and gathei'ed it, seemed like 

that false fairy gold 
Which leaves in the ha.nd only moss, 

leaves, and mould ! 



Fairy gold ! moss and leaves ! and the 

young Fairy Bride ? 
Lived there yet fairy-lands in the face 

at his side ? 
Say, friend, if at evening thou ever 

hast watched 
Some pale and impalpable vapor, de- 
tached 
From the dim and disconsolate earth, 

rise and fall 
O'er the light of a sweet serene star, until 

all 
The chilled splendor reluctantly waned 

in the deep 
Of its own native heaven ? Even so 

seemed to creep 
O'er that fair and ethereal face, day by 

day. 
While the radiant vermeil, subsiding 

away. 
Hid its light in the heart, the faint 

gradual veil 
Of a sadness unconscious. 

The lady grew pale 
As silent her lord grew : and both, as 

they eyed 
Each the other askance, turned, and 

secretly sighed. 
Ah, wise friend, what avails all experience 

can give ? 



True, we know what life is — but, alas ! 

do we live ? 
The grammar of life we have gotten by 

heart, 
But life's self we have made a dead lan- 
guage, — an art, 
Not a voice. Could we speak it, but 

once, as 't was spoken 
When the silence of passion the first 

time was broken ! 
Cuvier knew the world better than Adam, 

no doubt : 
But the last man, at best, was but learned 

about 
What the first, without learning, enjoyed. 

What art thou 
To the man of to-day, O Leviathan, 

now ? 
A science. What wert thou to him that 

from ocean 
First beheld thee appear ? A surprise, 

— an emotion ! 
When life leaps in the veins, when it 

beats in the heart. 
When it thrills as it fills every animate 

part. 
Where lurks it ? how works it ? ... we 

scarcely detect it. 
But life goes : the heart dies : haste, 

leech, and dissect it ! 
This accursed eesthetical, ethical age 
Hath so fingered life's hornbook, so 

blurred every page. 
That the old glad romance, the gay 

chivalrous stoiy. 
With its fables of faery, its legends of 

glory, 
Is turned to a tedious instruction, not 

new , 

To the children that read it insipidly 

through. 
We know too much of Love ere we love. 

We can trace 
Nothing new, unexpected, or strange in 

his face 
When we see it at last. 'T is the same 

little Cupid, 
With the same dimpled cheek, and the 

smile almost stxipid, 
We have seen in our pictures, and stuck 

on our shelves, 
And copied a hundred times over, our- 
selves. 
And wherever we turn, and whatever 

we do, 
Still, that horrible sense of the dejdb 

eonnu t 



78 



LUCILE. 



Perchance 't was the fault of the life 

that they led ; 
Perchance 't was the fault of the novels 

they read ; 
Perchance 't was a fault in themselves ; 

I am bound not 
To say : this I know — that these two 

creatures found not 
In each other some sign they expected 

to find 
Of a something unnamed in the heart or 

the mind ; 
And, missing it, each felt a right to com- 
plain 
Of a sadness which each found no word 

to explain. 
"Whatever it was, the world noticed not 

it 
In the light-hearted beauty, the light- 
hearted wit. 
Still, as once with the actors in Greece, 

't is the case. 
Each must speak to the crown with a 

mask on his face. •- 

Praise followed Matilda wherever she 

went. 
She was flattered. Can flattery pur- 
chase content ? 
Yes. While to its voice, for a moment, 

she listened, 
The young cheek still bloomed, and the 

soft eyes still glistened ; 
And her lord, when, like one of those 

light vivid things 
That glide down the gauzes of summer 

with mngs 
Of rapturous radiance, unconscious she 

moved 
Through that buzz of inferior creatures, 

which proved 
Her beauty, their envy, one moment 

forgot 
'Mid the many charms there, the one 

charm that was not : 
And when o'er her beauty enraptured he 

bowed, 
(As they turned to each other, each 

flushed from the crowd,) 
And murmured those praises which yet 

seemed more dear 
Than the praises of others had grown to 

her ear. 
She, too, ceased awhile her own fate to 

regret : 
"Yes ! ... he loves me," she sighed ; 

" this is love, then, — and yet — .' " 



Ah, that yet ! fatal word ! 't is the 

moral of all 
Thought and felt, seen or done, in this 

world since the Fall ! 
It stands at the end of each sentence we 

learn ; 
It flits in the vista of all we discern ; 
It leads us, for ever and ever, away 
To find in to-morrow what flies with 

to-day. 
'T was this same little fatal and mysti- 
cal word 
That now, like a mirkge, led my lady 

and lord 
To the waters of Ems from the waters of 

Marah ; 
Drooping pilgrims in Fashion's blank; 

arid Sahara ! 



At the same time, pursued by a spell 

much the same. 
To these waters two other worn pilgrims 

there came : 
One a man, one a woman : just now, at 

the latter, 
As the Reader I mean by and by to look 

at her 
And judge for himself, I Avill not even 

glance. 



Of the self-crowned young kings of the 

Fashion in France 
Whose resplendent regalia so dazzled 

the sight. 
Whose horse was so perfect, whose boots 

were so bright, 
Who so hailed in the salon, so marked 

in the Bois, 
"Who so welcomed by all, as Eugene de 

Luvois ? 
Of all the smooth-browed premature 

debauchees 
In that town of all towns, where De- 
bauchery sees 
On the forehead of youth her mark 

everywhere graven, — 
In Paris I mean, — where the streets 

are all paven 
By those two fiends whom Milton saw 

bridging the way 
From Hell to this planet, — who, 

haughty and gaj'. 
The free rebel of life, bound or led by 

no law. 



LUCILE. 



79 



"Walked that causeway as bold as Eugfene 

de Luvois ? 
Yes ! he marched through the great 

mas(iuerade, loud of tongue, 
Bold of brow : but the motley he masked 

in, it hung 
So loose, trailed so wide, and appeared 

to impede 
So strangely at times the vexed effort at 

speed. 
That a keen eye might guess it was 

made — not for him, 
But some brawler more stalwart of stat- 
ure and limb. 
That it irked him, in tmth, you at 

timeg could divine. 
For when low was the music, and spilt 

was the wine, 
He would clutch at the garment, as 

though it oppressed 
And stifled some impulse that choked 

in his breast. 



What ! he, . . . the light sport of his 
frivolous ease ! 

Was he, too, a prey to a mortal disease ? 

My friend, hear a parable : ponder it 
well : 

For a moral there is in the tale that I 
tell. 

One evening I sat in the Palais Royal, 

And there, while I laughed at Grassot 
and Arnal, 

My eye fell on the face of a man at my 
side ; 

Every time. that he laughed I observed 
that he sighed. 

As though vexed to be pleased. I re- 
marked that he sat 

111 at ease on his seat, and kept twirling 
his hat 

In his hand, with a look of unquiet ab- 
straction. 

I inquired the cause of his dissatisfac- 
tion. 

" Sir," he said, "if what vexes me here 
you would know. 

Learn that, passing this way some few 
half-hours ago, 

I walked into the Franfais, to look at 
Eachel. 

(Sir, that woman in Phedre is a mira- 
cle !)— Well, 

I asked for a box : they were occupied 
all: 



For a seat in the balcony : all taken ! a 

stall : 
Taken too : the whole house was as full 

as could be, — 
Not a hole for a rat ! I had just tiiae to 

see 
The lady I love Utc-ci-tetc with a friend 
In a box out of reach at the opposite end : 
Then the crowd pushed me out. What 

was left me to do ? 
I tried for the tragedy . . . que voulez- 

vous ? 
Every place for the tragedj' booked ! . . . 

mon ami, 
The farce was close by : ... at the farce 

iTie void! 
The piece is a new one : and Grassot 

plays Avell : 
There is drollerj'-, too, in that fellow 

Ravel ; 
And Hyacinth's nose is superb ! . . . Yet 

I meant 
My evening elsewhere, and not thus, to 

have spent. 
Fate orders these things by her will, not 

by ours ! 
Sir, mankind is the sport of iuvisible 

powers." 

I once met the Due de Luvois for a mo- 
ment ; 

And I marked, when his features I fixed 
in my comment, 

O'er those features the same vague dis- 
quietude stray 

I had seen on the face of my friend at 
the play ; 

And I thought that he too, very proba- 
bly, spent 

His evenings not wholly as first he had 
meant. 



source of the holiest joys we inherit, 

Sorrow, thou solemn, invisible spirit ! 

Ill fares it with man when, through 
life's desert sand, 

Grown impatient too soon for the long- 
promised land 

He turns from the worship of thee, as 
thou art. 

An expressless and imageless truth in 
the heart, 

And takes of the jewels of Egypt, the 
pelf 

And the gold of the Godless, to make to 
himself 



80 



LUCILE, 



A gaudy, idolatrous image of thee, 
And then bows to the sound of the cym- 
bal the knee. 
The sorrows we make to ourselves are 

false gods : 
Like the prophets of Baal, our bosoms 

with rods 
We may smite, we may gash at our 

hearts till they bleed, 
But these idols are blind, deaf, and dumb 

to our need. 
The land' is athirst, and cries out ! . . . 

't is in vain ; 
The great blessing of Heaven descends 

not in rain. 



It was night ; and the lamps were be- 
ginning to gleam 
Through the long linden-trees, folded 

each in his dream, 
From that building which looks like a 

temple . . . and is 
The Temple of — Health ? Nay, but 

enter ! I wis 
That never the rosy-hued deity knew 
One votary out of that sallow-cheeked 

crew 
Of Courlanders, "Wallacs, Greeks, affable 

Russians, 
Explosive Parisians, potato-faced Prus- 
sians ; 
Jews — Hamburghers chiefly ; — pure 

patriots, - — Suabians ; — 
" Cappadocians and Elamites, Cretes and 

Arabians, 
9 And the dwellers in Pontus "... My 

muse will not weary 
More lines with the list of them . . . 

cur fremiLere ? 
What is it they miirmur, and mutter, 

and hum ? 
Into what Pandemonium is Pentecost 

come ? 
0, what is the name of the god at whose 

fane 
Every nation is mixed in so motley a 

train ? 
Wliat weird Kabal^ies on those tables 

outspread ? 
To what oracle turns with attention each 

head? 
What holds these pale worshippers each 

so devout, 
And what are those hierophants busied 

about ? 



Here passes, repasses, and flits to and fro, 
And rolls without ceasing the great Yes 

and No : 
Round this altar alternate the -weird 

Passions dance. 
And the God worshipped here is the old 

God of Chance. 
Through the wide-open doors of the dis- 
tant saloon 
Flute, hautboy, and fiddle are squeaking 

in tune ; 
And an indistinct music forever is rolled. 
That mixes and chimes with the chink 

of the gold, 
From a vision, that flits in a luminous 

haze. 
Of figures forever eluding the gaze ; 
It fleets through the doonvay, it gleams 

on the glass. 
And the weird words pursue it — Rouge, 

Impair, et Passe ! 
Like a sound borne in sleep through 

such dreams as encumber 
With haggard emotions the wild wicked 

slumber 
Of some witch when she seeks, through 

a nightmare, to grab at 
The hot hoof of the fiend, on her way 

to the Sabbat. 



The Due de Luvois and Lord Alfred 

had met 
Some few evenings ago (for the season 

as yet 
Was but young) in this self- same Pa^^l- 

ion of Chance. 
The idler from England, the idler from 

France 
Shook hands, each, of course, with much 

cordial pleasure : 
An acquaintance at Em,s is to most men 

a treasure. 
And they both were too well-bred in 

aught to betray 
One discourteous remembrance of things 

passed away. 
'T was a sight that was pleasant, indeed, 

to be seen, 
These friends exchange greetings ; — the 

men who had been 
Foes so nearly in days that were past. 

This, no doubt, 
Is why, on the night I am speaking 

about. 



LUCILE. 



81 



My Lord Alfred sat down by himself at 

roulette, 
Without one suspicion his bosom to 

fret, 
Although he had left, with his pleasant 

French friend, 
Matilda, half vexed, at the room'sfarthest 

end. 



Lord Alfred his combat with Fortune 

began 
"With a few modest thalers — away they 

all ran — 
The reserve followed fast in the rear. 

As bis purse 
Grew lighter his spirits grew sensibly 

worse. 
One needs not a Bacon to find a cause 

for it : 
'T is an old law in physics — Natura 

abhorret 
Vacuum — and my lord, as he watched 

his last crown 
Tumble into the bank, turned away 

with a fro^vn 
Wliich the brows of Napoleon himself 

might have decked 
On that day of all days when an empire 

was wrecked 
On thy plain, Waterloo, and he wit- 
nessed the last 
Of his favorite Guard cut to pieces, 

aghast ! 
Just then Alfred felt, he could scarcely 

tell why, 
Within him the sudden strange sense 

that some eye 
Had long been intently regarding him 

there, — 
That some gaze was upon him too search- 
ing to bear. 
He rose and looked up. Was it fact ? 

Was it fable ? 
Was it dream ? Was it waking ? Across 

the green table. 
That face, with its features so fatally 

known, — 
Those eyes, whose deep gaze answered 

strangely his own, — 
What was it ? Some ghost from its grave 

come again ? 
Some cheat of a feverish, fanciful brain ? 
Or was it herself — with those deep eyes 

of hers. 
And that face unforgotten ? — Lucile de 

Nevers ! 



Ah, well that pale woman a phantom 

might seem. 
Who appeared to herself but the dream 

of a dream ! 
'Neath those features so calm, that fair 

forehead so hushed. 
That pale cheek forever by passion un- 

flushed. 
There yawned an insatiate void, and 

there heaved 
A tumult of restless regrets unrelieved. 
The brief noon of beauty was passing 

away, 
And the chill of the twilight fell, silent 

and gray. 
O'er that deep, self-perceived isolation 

of soul. 
And now, as all round her the dim even- 
ing stole. 
With its weird desolations, she inwardly 

grieved 
For the want of that tender assurance 

received 
From the warmth of a whisper, the glance 

of an e}'e. 
Which should say, or should look, "Fear 

thou naught, — / am by ! " 
And thus, through that lonely and self- 
fixed existence, 
Crept a vague sense of silence, and horror, 

and distance : 
A strange sort of faint-footed fear, — 

like a mouse 
That comes out, when 't is dark, in some 

old ducal house 
Long deserted, where no one the creature 

can scare. 
And the forms on the arras are all that 

move there. 

In Eome, — in the Forum,— there opened 

one night 
A gulf. All the augurs turned pale at 

the sight. 
In this omen the anger of Heaven they 

read. 
Men consulted the gods : then the oracle 

said : — 
" Ever open this gv^ shall endure, till 

at last 
That which Eottie hath most precious 

within it be cast." 
The Eomans threw in it their corn and 

their stuff. 
But the gulf yawned as wide. Komo 

seemed likely enough 



82 



LUCILE. 



To be ruined ere this rent in her heart 

she could choke. 
Then Curtius, revering the oracle, spoke : 
' • Quirites ! to this Heaven's question 

is come : 
V»"hat to Rome is most precious ? The 

manhood of Rome." 
He plunged, and the gulf closed. 

The tale is not new ; 
But the moral applies many ways, and 

is true. 
How, for hearts rent in twain, shall the 

curse be destroyed ? 
'T is a warm human life that must iill 

up the void. 
Thorough many a heart runs the rent in 

' the fable ; 
But who to discover a Curtius is able ? 



Back she came from her long hiding- 
place, at the source 

Of the sunrise ; where, fair in their fab- 
ulous course. 

Run the rivers of Eden : an exile again. 

To the cities of Europe, — the scenes, 
and the men, 

And the life, and the ways, she had left : 
still oppressed 

With the same hungry heart, and un- 
peaceable breast. 

The same, to the same things ! The 
world, she had quitted 

"With a sigh, with a sigh she re-entered. 
Soon flitted 

Through the salons and clubs, to the 
gi-eat satisfaction 

Of Paris, the news of a novel attraction. 

The enchanting Liicile, the gay Coun- 
tess, once more 

To her old friend, the World, had re- 
opened her door ; 

The World came, and shook hands, and 
was pleased and amused 

With what the World then went away 
and abused. 

From the woman's fair fame it in naught 
could detract : 

'T was the woman's free genius it vexed 
and attacked 

With a sneer at her freedom of action 
and speech. 

But its light careless cavils, in truth, 
coiild not reach 

The lone heart they aimed at. Her 
tears fell beyond 



The world's limit, to feel that the world 

could respond 
To that heart's deepest, innermost yearn- 
ing, in naught. 
'T was no longer this earth's idle inmates 

she sought : 
The wit of the woman sufficed to engage 
In the woman's gay court the first men 

of the age. 
Some had genius ; and all, wealth of 

mind to confer 
On the world : but that wealth was not 

lavished for her. 
For the genius of man, though so human 

indeed. 
When called out to man's help by some 

great human need. 
The right to a man's chance acquaintance 

refuses 
To use what it hoards for mankind's no- 
bler uses. 
Genius touches the world at but one 

point alone 
Of that spacious circumference, never 

quite known 
To the world : all the infinite number of 

lines 
That radiate thither a mere point com- 
bines. 
But one only, — some central affection 

apart 
From the reach of the world, in Mhich 

Genius is Heart, 
And love, life's fine centre, includes 

heart and mind. 
And therefore it was that Lucile sighed 

to find 
Men of genius appear, one and all in 

her ken. 
When they stooped themselves to it, as 

mere clever men ; 
Artists, statesmen, and they in whose 

works are unfurled 
Worlds new-fashioned for man, as mere 

men of the world. 
And so, as alone now she stood, in the 

sight 
Of the sunset of yoiith, with her face 

from the light. 
And watched her own shadow grow long 

at her feet. 
As though stretched out, the shade of 

some other to meet, 
The woman felt homeless and childless : 

in scorn 
She seemed mocked by the voices of 

children unborn ; 



LUCILE. 



83 



And when from these somhre reflections 

away 
She turned, with a sigh, to that gay 

Avorld, more gay 
For her presence within it, she knew 

herself friendless ; 
That her path led from peace, and that 

path appeared endless ! 
That even her beauty had been but a 

snare, 
And her wit sharpened only the edge of 

despair. 

XVIII. 

With a face all transfigured and flushed 

by surprise, 
Alfred turned to Lucile. "With those 

deep searching eyes 
She looked into his own. Not a word 

that she said. 
Not a look, not a blush, one emotion 

betrayed. 
She seemed to smile through him, at 

something beyond : 
When she answered his questions, she 

seemed to respond 
To some voice in herself. With no 

trouble descried, 
To each troubled inquiry she calmly 

replied. 
Not so he. ^t the sight of that face 

back a^ain 
To his mind came the ghost of a long- 
stifled pain, 
A remembered resentment, half checked 

by a wild 
And relentful regret like a motherless 

child 
Softly seeking admittance, with plaintive 

appeal, 
To the heart which resisted its entrance. 

Lucile 
And himself thus, however, with free- 
dom allowed 
To old friends, talking still side by side, 

left the crowd 
By the crowd unobserved. Not unno- 
ticed, however. 
By the Duke and Matilda. Matilda had 

never 
Seen her husband's new friend. 

She had followed by chance, 
Or by instinct, the sudden half-menacing 

glance 
Which the Duke, when he witnessed 

their meeting, had turned 



On Lucile and Lord Alfred ; and, scared, 

she discerned 
On his features the shade of a gloom so 

profound 
That she shuddered instinctively. Deaf 

to the sound 
Of her voice, to some startled inquiry of 

hers 
He replied not, but murmured, ' ' Lucile 

de Nevers 
Once again then ? so be it ! " In the 

mind of that man, 
At that moment, there shaped itself 

vaguely the plan 
Of a purpose malignant and dark, such 

alone 
(To his own secret heart but imperfectly 

shown) 
As could spring from the cloudy, fierce 

chaos of thought 
By which all his nature to tumult was 

wrought. 

XIX. 
"So!" he thought, "they meet thus: 

. and reweave the old charm ! 
And-4he hangs on his voice, and she 

*— leans on his arm,j 
And she heeds me not, seeks me not, 

recks not of me ! 
0, what if I showed her that I, too, can 

be 
Loved by one — her o\vn rival — more 

fair and more young ? " 
The serpent rose in him : a serpent 

which, stung. 
Sought to sting. 

Each unconscious, indeed, of the ej^e 
Fixed upon them, Lucile and my lord 

sauntered by, 
In converse which seemed to be earnest. 

A smile 
Now and then seemed to showwhere their 

thoughts touched. Meanwhile 
The muse of this story, convinced that 

they need her, 
To the Duke and Matilda returns, gentle 

Header. 

XX. 
The Duke, with that sort of aggressive 

false praise 
Which is meant a resentful remonstrance 

to raise 
From a listener (as sometimes a judge, 

just before 
He pulls down the black cap, very gently 

goes o'er 



84 



LUCILE. 



The case for the prisoner, and deals ten- 
derly 
With the man he is minded to hang by 

and by), 
Had referred' to Lucile, and then stopped 

to detect 
In the face of Matilda the growing effect 
Of the words he had dropped. There 's 

no weapon that slays 
Its victim so surely (if well aimed) as 

praise. 
Thus, a pause on their converse had 

fallen : and now 
Each was silent, preoccupied, thoughtful. 
You know 
There are moments when silence, pro- 
longed and unbroken, 
More expressive may be than all words 

ever spoken. 
It is when the heart has an instinct of 

what 
In the heart of another is passing. And 

that 
. In the heart of Matilda, what was it ? 

Whence came 
To her cheek on a sudden that tremulous 

flame? 
What weighed down her head ? 

All your eye could discover 
Was the fact that Matilda was troubled. 

Moreover 
That trouble the Duke's presence seemed 

to renew. 
She, however, broke silence, the first of 

the two. 
The Duke was too prudent to shatter the 

spell 
Of a silence which suited his purpose so 

well. 
She was plucking the leaves from a pale 

blush rose blossom 
Which had fallen from the nosegay she 

wore in her bosom. 
"This poor flower," she said, "seems it 

not out of place 
In this hot, lamplit air, with its fresh, 

fragile grace 1 " 
She bent her head low as she spoke. 

With a smile 
The Duke watched her caressing the 

leaves all the while, 
And continued on his side the silence. 

He knew 
This would force his companion their 

talk to renew 
At the point that he wished ; and Matilda 

divined 



The significant pause with new trouble 

of mind. 
She lifted one moment her head; but 

her look 
Encountered the ardent regard of the 

Duke, 
And dropped back on her floweret 

abashed. Then, still seeking 
The assurance she fancied she showed 

him by speaking. 
She conceived herself safe in adopting 

again 
The theme she should most have avoided 

just then. 

XXI. 

"Duke," she said, . . . and she felt, as 

she spoke, her cheek burned, 
" You know, then, this . . . lady ? " 

" Too well !" he returned. 

Matilda. 
True ; you drew with emotion her por- 
trait just now. 

Luvois. 
With emotion ? 

Matilda. 
Yes, yes ! you described her, I know, 
As possessed of a charm all unrivalled. 

Luvois. 

Alas! 
You mistook me completely ! You, 

madam, surpass 
This lady as moonlight does lamplight ; 

as youth 
Surpasses its best imitations ; as tmth 
The fairest of falsehoods surpasses ; as 

nature 
Surpasses art's masterpiece ; ay, as the 

creature 
Fresh and pure in its native adornment 

surpasses 
All the charms got by heart at the 

world's looking-glasses ! 

"Yet you said," — she continued with 

some trepidation, 
"That you quite comprehended" ... a 

slight hesitation 
Shook the sentence, ... "a passion so 

strong as " 

Lttvois. 

True, true ! 



LUCILE. 



85 



But not in a man that had once looked 
at you. 

Nor can I conceive, or excuse, or . . . 

"Hush, hush ! " 

She broke in^ all more fair for one inno- 
cent blush. 

" Between man and woman these things 
differ so ! 

It may be that the world pardons . . . 
(how should I know ?) 

In you what it visits on us ; or 't is true, 

It may be, that we women are better 
than you." 

Luvois. 

Who denieait ? Yet, madam, once more 
you mistake. 

The world, in its judgment, some differ- 
ence may make 

'Twixt the man and the woman, so far 
as respects 

Its social enactments ; but not as affects 

The one sentiment which, it were easy 
to prove. 

Is the sole law we look to the moment 
we love. 

Matilda. ' 

That may be. Yet I think I should be 

less severe. 
Although so inexperienced in such things, 

I fear 
I have learned that the heart cannot 

always repress 
Or account for the feelings which sway 

it. 

"Yes ! yes ! 
That is too true, indeed ! " . . . the Duke 

sighed. 

And again 
For one moment in silence continued 

the twain. 



At length the Duke slowly, as though 

he had needed 
All this time to repress his emotions, 

proceeded : 
"And j'et ! . . . what avails, then, to 

woman the gift 
Of a beauty like yours, if it cannot uplift 
Her heart from the reach of one doubt, 

one despair, 
One pang of wronged love, to which 

women less fair 
Are exposed, when they love ? " 

With a quick change of tone, 



As though by resentment impelled, he 
went on : — 

"The name that you bear, it is whis- 
pered, you took 

From love, not convention. Well, lady, 
. . . that look 

So excited, so keen, on the face you 
must know 

Throughout all its expressions, — that 
rapturous glow — 

Those eloquent features — significant 
eyes — 

Which that pale woman sees, yet be- 
trays no surprise," 

(He pointed his hand as he spoke to the 
door, 

Fixing with it Lucile and Lord Alfred,) 
. . . "before. 

Have you ever once seen what just now 
you may view 

In that face so familiar ? . . . no, lady, 
't is new. 

Young, lovely, and loving, no doubt, as 
you are. 

Are you loved ? " . . . 

XXIII. 

He looked at her — paused — felt if 

thus far 
The ground held yet. The ardor with 

which he had spoken, 
This close, rapid question, thus suddenly 

broken. 
Inspired in Matilda a vague sense of fear, 
As though some indefinite danger were 

near. 
With composure, however, at once she 

replied : — 
" 'T is three years since the day when I 

first was a bride. 
And my husband I never had cause to 

suspect ; 
Nor ever have stooped, sir, such cause 

to detect. 
Yet if in his looks or his acts I should 

see — 
See, or fancy — some moment's oblivion 

of me, 
I trust that I too should forget it, — for 

you 
Must have seen that my heart is my 

husband's." 

The hue 
On her cheek, with the effort wherewith 

to the Duke 
She had uttered this vague and half- 
frightened rebuke. 



86 



LUCILE. 



"Was white as the rose in her hand. The 
last word 

Seemed to die on her lip, and could 
scarcely be heard. 

There was silence again. 

A great step had been made 

By the Duke in the words he that even- 
ing had said. 

There, half drowned by the music, Ma- 
tilda, that night. 

Had listened, — long listened, — no 
doubt, in despite 

Of herself, to a voice she should never 
have heard, 

And her heart by that voice had been 
troubled and stirred. 

And so, having suffered in silence his 
eye 

To fathom her own, he resumed, with a 



XXIV. 

" Will you suffer me, lady, your thoughts 
to invade 

By disclosing my own ? The position," 
he said, 

" In which we so strangely seem placed 
may excuse 

The frankness and force of the words 
which I use. 

You say that your heart is your hus- 
band's. You say 

That you love him. You think so, of 
course, lady . . . nay, 

Such a love, I admit, were a merit, no 
doubt. . 

But, trust me, mo true love there can be 
Muthout 1 

Its dread penalty — jealous^/ 

" Well, do not start ! 

Until now, — either thanks to a singu- 
lar art 

Of supreme self-control, you have held 
them all down 

Unrevealed in your heart, — or you 
never have known 

Even one of those fierce irresistible pangs 

Which deep passion engenders ; that an- 
guish which hangs 

On the heart like a nightmare, by jeal- 
ousy bred. 

But if, lady, the love you describe, in 
the bed 

Of a blissful security thus hath reposed 

Undisturbed with mild eyelids on hap- 
piness closed, 

Were it not to expose to a peril unjust. 



And most cruel, that happy repose you 

so trust 
To meet, to receive, and, indeed, it may 

be. 
For how long I know not, continue to 

see 
A woman whose place rivals yours in 

the life 
And the heart which not only your title 

of wife. 
But also (forgive me !) your beauty alone, 
Should have made wholly yours ? — You, 

who gave all your own ! 
Reflect ! — 't is the peace of existence 

you stake 
On the turn of a die. And for whose 

— for his sake ? 

While 3'ou witness this woman, the false 

point of view 
From which she must now be regarded 

by you 
Will exaggerate to you, whatever they be, 
The charms I admit she possesses. To 

me 
They are trivial indeed ; yet to your 

eyes, I fear 
And foresee, they will true and intrinsic 

appear. 
Self-unconscious, and sweetly unable to 

guess 
How more lovely by far is the grace you 

possess. 
You will wrong your own beauty. The 

graces of art, 
You will take for the natural charm of 

the heart ; 
Studied manners, the brilliant and bold 

repartee. 
Will too soon in that fatal comparison be 
To your fancy more fair than the sweet 

timid sense 
Which, in shrinking, betrays its own 

best eloquence. 
then, lady, then, you wiU feel in your 

heart 
The poisonous pain of a fierce jealous 

dart ! 
While you see her, yourself you no 

longer will see, — 
You will hear her, and hear not yourself, 

— you will be 

Unhappy ; unhappy, because you will 

deem 
Your own power less great than her 

power will seem. ' 

And I shall not be by your side, day by j 

day, I 



LUCILE. 



87 



In despite of your noble displeasure, to 

say 
* You are fairer than she, as the star is 

more fair 
Than the diamond, the brightest that 

beauty can wear ! ' " 

XXV. 

This appeal, both by looks and by lan- 
guage, increased 

The trouble Matilda felt gi'ow in her 
breast. 

Still she spoke with what calmness she 
could : — 

"Sir, the while 

I thank ymi," she said, with a faint 
scornful smile, 

" For your fervor in painting my fancied 
distress : 

Allow me the right some surprise to ex- 
press 

At the zeal you betray in disclosing to 
me 

The possible depth of my own misery." 

" That zeal would not startle you, 
madam," he said, 

" Could you read in my heart, as myself 
I have read. 

The peculiar interest which causes that 
zeal — " 

Matilda her terror no more could con- 
ceal. 

" Duke," she answered in accents short, 
cold, and severe. 

As she rose from her seat, " I continue 
to hear ; 

But permit me to say, I no more under- 
stand. " 

" Forgive ! " with a nervous appeal of 

the hand, 
And a well-feigned confusion of voice 

and of look, 
" Forgive, 0, forgive me ! " at once cried 

the Duke, 
*' I forgot that you know me so slightly. 

Your leave 
I entreat (from your anger those words 

to retrieve) 
For one moment to speak of myself, — 

for I think 
That you wrong me — " 

His voice as in pain seemed to sink ; 
And tears in his eyes, as he lifted them, 

glistened. 



XXVI. 

Matilda, despite of herself, sat and lis- 
tened. 



XXVII. 

' ' Beneath an exterior which seems, aiid 

may be, 
"Worldly, frivolous, careless, my heart 

hides in me," 
He continued, " a sorrow which draws 

me to side 
With all things that suffer. Nay, laugh 

not," he cried, 
" At so strange an avowal. 

" I seek at a ball. 
For instance, — the beauty admired by 

all? 
No ! some plain, insignificant creature, 

who sits 
Scorned of course by the beauties, and 

shunned by the wits. 
All the world is accustomed to wound, 

or neglect. 
Or oppress, claims my heart and com- 
mands my respect. 
No Quixote, I do not aifect to be- 
long, 
I admit, to those chartered redressers of 

'ftTong ; 
But I seek to console, where I can. 'T is 

a part 
Not brilliant, I own, yet its joys bring 

no smart." 
These trite words, from the tone which 

he gave them, received 
An appearance of truth, which might 

well be believed 
By a heart shrewder yet than Matilda's. 

And so 
He continued . . . "Olady ! alas, could 

you know 
"What injustice and wrong in this world 

I have seen ! 
How many a woman, believed to have 

been 
Without a regret, I have known turn 



To burst into heart-broken tears unde- 

scried ! 
On how many a lip have I witnessed the 

smile 
Which but hid what was breaking the 

poor heart the while ! " 
Said Matilda, ' ' Your life, it would seem, 

then, must be 
One long act of devotion." . 



88 



LUCILE. 



" Perhaps so," said he ; 
"But at least that devotion small merit 

can boast, 
For one day may yet come, — if one day 

at the most, — 
When, perceiving at last all the differ- 
ence — how great ! — 
'Twixt the heart that neglects and the 

heart that can wait, 
'Twixt the natures that pity, the natures 

that pain. 
Some woman, that else might have 

passed in disdain 
Or inditference by me, — in passing that 

day 
Might pause with a word or a smile to 

repay 
This devotion, — and then "... 



To Matilda's relief 

Atthat moment her husband approached. 

"With some grief 

I must own that her welcome, perchance, 

was expressed 
The more eagerly just for one twinge in 

her breast 
Of a conscience disturbed, and her smile 

not less warm, 
Though she saw the Comtesse de Nevers 

on his arm. 
The Duke turned and adjusted his collar. 
Thought he, 
" Good ! the gods fight my battle to- 
night. I foresee 
That the family doctor's the part I 

must play. 
Very well ! but the patients my visits 

shall pay." 
Lord Alfred presented Lucile to his 

wife ; 
And Matilda, repressing with effort the 

strife 
Of emotions which made her voice shake, 

murmured low 
Some faint, troubled greeting. The 

Duke, with a bow 
"Which betokened a distant deiiance, re- 
plied 
To Lucile's startled cry, as surprised she 

descried 
Her former gay wooer. Anon, with the 

grace 
Of that kindness which seeks to win 

kindness, her place 



She assumed by Matilda, unconscious, 
perchance, 

Or resolved not to notice, the half- 
frightened glance 

That followed that movement. 

The Duke to his feet 

Arose ; and, in silence, relinquished h?s 
seat. 

One must own that the moment was 
awkward for all ; 

But nevertheless, before long, the strange 
thrall 

Of Lucile's gracious tact was by every 
one felt. 

And from each the reserve seemed, re- 
luctant, to melt ; 

Thus, conversing together, the whole of 
the four 

Through the crowd sauntered, smiling. 



Approaching the door, 

Eugene de Luvois, who had fallen be- 
hind. 

By Lucile, after sortie hesitation, was 
joined 

"With a gesture of gentle and kindly 
appeal 

"Which appeared to imply, without words, 
"Let us feel 

That the friendship between us in years 
that are fled, 

Has survived one mad moment forgot- 
ten," she said, 

" You remain, Duke, at Ems ? " 

He turned on her a look 

Of frigid, resentful, and sullen rebuke ; 

And then, with a more than significant 
glance 

At Matilda, maliciously answered, "Per- 
chance 

I have here an attraction. And you ? " 
he returned. ' ' 

Lucile's eyes had followed his own, and 
discerned 

The boast they implied. 

He repeated, " And you ? " 

And, still watching Matilda, she an- 
swered, "I too." 

And he thought, as with that word she 
left him, she sighed. 

The next moment her place she resumed 
by the side 

Of Matilda ; and soon they shook hands 
at the gate 

Of the selfsame hotel. 



LUCILE. 



89 



XXX. 

One depressed, one elate, 
The Duke and Lord Alfred again, through 

the glooms 
Of the thick linden alley, returned to 

the Rooms. 
HTs cigar each had lighted, a moment 

before, 
At the inn, as they turned, arm-in-arm, 

from the door. 
Ems cigars do not cheer a man's spirits, 

experto 
{Me mis&rum quoties t) crede Roberto. 
In silence, awhile, they walked onward. 

At last 
The Duke's thoughts to language half 

consdfously passed, 

Luvois. 
Once more ! yet once more ! 

Alfred. 

What? 

Luvois. 

"We meet her, once more, 
The woman for whom we two mad men 

of yore 
(Laugh, mon cher Alfred, laugh !) were 

about to destroy 
Each, the other ! 

Alfred. 
It is not with laughter that I 
Raise the ghost of that once troubled 

time. Say ! can you 
Eecall it with coolness and quietude 
now? 

Ltjvois. 
Now ? yes ! T, mon cher, am a true 

Parisien : i 

Now, the red Tevolution, the tocsin, and 

then 
The dance and the play. I am now at 

the play. 

Alfred. 

At the play, are you now ? Then per- 
chance I now may 

Presume, Duke, to ask you what, ever 
until 

Such a moment, I waited ... 

• Luvois. 

Oh! ask what you will. 



Franc jeu ! on the table my cards I spread 

out. 
Ask! 

Alfred. 

Duke, you were called to a meeting 

(no doubt 
You remember it yet) with Lucile. It 

was night 
"When you went ; and before you returned 

it was light. 
"We met : you accosted me then with a 

brow 
Bright with triumph : your words (you 

remember them now ?) 
"Were " Let us be friends ! " 



Luvois. 



Well? 



Alfred. 

How then, after that. 
Can you and she meet as acquaintances ? 

Luvois. 

What! 
Did she not then, herself, the Comtesse 

de Nevers, 
Solve your riddle to-night with those soft 
. lips of hers ? 

Alfred. 

In our converse to-night we avoided the 
past. 

But the question I ask should be an- 
swered at last : 

By you, if you will ; if you will not, by 
her. 

Luvois. 
Indeed ? but that question, milord, can 

it stir 
Such an interest in you, if your passion 

be o'er ? 

Alfred. 

Yes. Esteem may remain, although love 
be no more. 

Lucile asked me, this night, to my wife 
(understand 

To my wife !) to present her. I did so. 
Her hand 

Has clasped that of Matilda. We gen- 
tlemen owe 

Kespect to the name that is ours : and, 
if s"o. 



90 



LUCILE. 



To the woman that hears it a twofold 
respect. 

Answer, Due de Luvois ! Did Lucile 
then reject 

The proffer you made of your hand and 
your name ? 

Or did you on her love then relinquish 
a claim 

Urged before ? I ask bluntly this ques- 
tion, because 

My title to do so is clear by the laws 

That all gentlemen honor. Make only 
one sign 

That you know of Lucile de Ifevers aught, 
in fine, , 

For which, if your own virgin sister 
were by, 

From Lucile you would shield her ac- 
quaintance, and I 

And Matilda leave Ems on the morrow. 



XXXI. 

The Duke 
Hesitated and paused. He could tell^ 

by the look 
Of the man at his side, that he meant 

what he said. 
And there flashed in a moment these 

thoughts through his head : 
"Leave Ems ! would that suit me ? no ! 

that were again 
To mar all. And besides, if I do not 

explain. 
She herself will . . . et puis, il a raison ; 

on est 
Gentilhomme avant tout J " He replied 

therefore, 

"Nay! 
Madame de Nevers had rejected me. I, 
In those days, I was mad ; and in some 

mad reply 
I threatened the life of the rival to whom 
That rejection was due, I was led to 

presume. 
She feared for his life ; and the letter 

which then 
She wrote me, I showed you ; we met : 

and again 
My hand was refused, and my love was 

denied, 
And the glance you mistook was the 

vizard which Pride 
Lends to Humiliation. 

" And so," half in jest, 
He went on, "in this best world, 'tis 

all for the best ; 



You are wedded, (blessed Englishman !) 

wedded to one 
Whose past can be called into question 

by none : 
And I (fickle Frenchman !) can still 

laugli to feel 
I am lord of myself, and the Mode : and 

Lucile 
Still shines fiom her pedestal, frigid and 

fair 
As yon German moon o'er the linden-tops 

there ! 
A Dian in marble that scorns any troth 
With the little love-gods, whom I thank 

for us both. 
While she smiles from her lonely Olym- 
pus apart. 
That her arrows are marble as well as 

her heart J 
Stay at Ems, Alrred Vargrave ! " 

XXXII. 

The Duke, Avith a smile, 
Turned and entered the Booms which, 

thus talking, meanwhile, 
They had reached. 

XXXIII. 

Alfred Vargrave strode on (overthrown 
Heart and mind !) in the darkness be- 
wildered, alone : 
"And so," to himself did he mutter, 

"and so 
'T was to rescue my life, gentle spirit ! 

and, oh. 
For this did I doubt her ? , . . a light 

word — a look — 
The mistake of a moment ! ... for this 

I forsook — 
For this ? Pardon, pardon, Lucile ! 

Lucile !" 
Thought and memory rang, like a funeral 

peal. 
Weary changes on one dirge-like note 

through his brain, 
As he strayed down the darkness. 

XXXIV. 

Ee-entering again 
The Casino, the Duke smiled. He turned 

to roulette. 
And sat down, and played fast, and lost 

largely, and yet 
He still smiled : night deepened : he 

played his last number : 
Went home : and soon slept : and still 

smiled in his slumber. 



LUCILE. 



91 



XXXV. 
In his desolate Maxims, La Rochefou- 
cauld wrote, 
" In the grief or mischance of a friend 

you may note, 
There is something which always gives 

pleasure." 

Alas! 
That reflection fell short of the truth as 

it was. 
La Rochefoucauld might have as truly 

set down, — 
"No misfortune, but what some one 

turns to his own 
Advantage its mischief : no sorrow, but 

of it 
There ever is somebody ready to profit : 
No affliction 'without its stock-jobbers, 

who all 
Gamble, speculate, play on the rise and 

the fall 
Of another man's heart, and make traffic 

in it." 
Burn thy book, La Rochefoucauld ! 

Fool ! one man's wit 
All men's selfishness how should it 

fathom ? 

sage, 
Dost thou satirize Nature ? 

She laughs at thy page. 



CANTO II. 

I. 

Cousin John to Cousin Alfred. 
"London, 18 — . 

"My dear Alfred : 

Your last letters put me in pain. 

This contempt of existence, this listless 
disdain 

Of your own life, — its joys and its du- 
ties, — the deuce 

Take my wits if they find for it half an 
excuse ! 

I wish that some Frenchman would 
shoot off your leg, 

And compel you to stump through the 
world on a peg. 

I wish that you had, like myself, (more 's 
the pity ! ) 

To sit seven hours on this cursed com- 
mittee. 

I wish that you knew, sir, how salt is 
the bread 



Of another — (what is it that Dante has 
said ?) 

And the trouble of other men's stairs. 
In a word, 

I wish fate had some real affliction con- 
ferred 

On your whimsical self, that, at least, 
you had cause 

For neglecting life's duties, and damning 
its laws ! 

This pressure against all the purpose of 
life, 

This self-ebullition, and ferment, and 

- strife. 

Betokened, I grant that it may be in 

truth, 
The richness and strength of the new 

wine of youth. 
But if, when the wine should have mel- 
lowed with time, 
Being bottled and binned, to a flavor 

sublime 
It retains the same acrid, incongruous 

taste. 
Why, the sooner to throw it away that 

we haste 
The better, 1 take it. And this vice of 

snarling. 
Self-love's little lapdog, the overfed dar- 
ling 
Of a hypochondriacal fancy appears. 
To my thinking, at least, in a man of 

your years, 
At the midnoon of manhood with plenty. 

to do, 
And every incentive for doing it too, — • 
"With the duties of life just sufficiently 

pressing 
For prayer, and of joys more than most 

men for blessing ; 
With a pretty young wife, and a pretty 

full purse, — 
Like poltroonery, puerile truly, or worse ! 
I wish I could get you at least to agree 
To take life as it is, and consider with me, 
If it be not all smiles, that it is not all 

sneers ; 
It admits honest laughter, and needs 

honest tears.' 
Do you think none have known but 

- yourself all the pain 

Of hopes that retreat, and regrets that 

remain ? 
And all the wide distance fate fixes, no 

doubt, 
'Twixt the life that's within, and the 

life that 's without ? 



92 



LUCILE. 



What one of us finds the world just as 

he likes ? 
Or gets what he wants when he wants 

it ? Or strikes 
Without missing the thing that he 

strikes at the first ? 
Or walks without stumbling ? Or 

quenches his thirst 
At one draught ? Bah ! I tell you ! 

1, bachelor John, 
Have had griefs of my own. But what 

then ? I push on 
All the faster perchance that I yet feel 

the pain 
Of my last fall, albeit I may stumble 

again. 
God means every man to be happy, be 

sure. 
/ He sends us no sorrows that have not 

some cure.' 
Our duty down here is to do, not to know. 
Live as though life were earnest, and 

life will be so. 
Let each moment, like Time's last am- 
bassador, come : 
It will wait to deliver its message ; and 

some 
Sort of answer it merits. It is not the 

deed 
A man does, but the way that he does 

it, should plead 
For the man's compensation in doing it. 

"Here, 
My next neighbor 's a man with twelve 

thousand a year, 
Who deems that life has not a pastime 

more pleasant 
Than to follow a fox or to slaughter a 

pheasant. 
Yet this fellow goes through a contested 

election, 
Lives in London, and sits, like the soul 

of dejection. 
All the day through upon a committee, 

and late 
To the last, every night, through the 

dreary debate, 
As though he were getting each speaker 

by heart, 
Though amongst them he never pre- 
sumes to take part. 
One asks himself why, without murmur 

or question. 
He foregoes all his tastes, and destroys 

his digestion. 
For a labor of which the result seems so 

small. 



'The man is ambitious,' you say. Not 

at all. 
He has just sense enough to be fully 

aware 
That he never can hope to be Premier, 

or share 
The renown of a Tully ; — or even to 

hold 
A subordinate office. He is not so bold 
As to fancy the House for ten minutes 

would bear 
With patience his modest opinions to 

hear. 
* But he wants something ! ' 

" What ! with twelve thousand a year ? 
What could Government give him would 

be half so dear 
To his heart as a walk with a dog and a 

gun 
Through his own pheasant woods, or a 

capital run ? 
' No ; but vanity fills out the emptiest 

brain ; 
The man would be more than his neigh- 
bors, 't is plain ; 
And the drudgery drearily gone through 

in town 
Is more than repaid by provincial re- 
nown. 
Enough if some Marchioness, lively and 

loose. 
Shall have eyed him with passing com- 

])laisance ; the goose. 
If the Fashion to him open one of its 

doors, 
As proud as a sultan, returns to his 

boors. ' 
Wrong again ! if you think so. 

" For, primo ; my friend 
Is the head of a family known from one 

end 
Of his shire to the othel-, as the oldest ; 

and therefore 
He despises fine lords and fine ladies. 

He care for 
A peerage ? no, truly ! Seccmdo ; he 

rarely 
Or never goes out : dines at Bellamy's 

sparely. 
And abhors what you call the gay world. 
"Then, I ask. 
What inspires, and consoles, such a self- 
imposed task 
As the life of this man, — but the sense 

of its duty ? 
And I swear that the eyes of the haugh- 
tiest beauty 



LUCILE. 



93 



Have never inspired in my soul that in- 
tense, 

Reverential, and loving, and absolute 
sense 

Of heartfelt admiration I feel for this 
man, 

As I see him beside me ; — there, wear- 
ing the wan 

London daylight away, on his humdrum 
committee ; 

So unconscious of all that awakens my 
pity, 

And wonder — and worship, I might say. 

"To toe 

There seems something nobler than gen- 
ius to be 

In that dull patient labor no genius re- 
lieves^ 

That absence of all joy which yet never 
grieves ; 

The humility of it ! the grandeur withal ! 

The sublimity of it ! And yet, should 
you call 

The man's own very slow apprehension 
to this. 

He would ask, with a stare, what sub- 
limity is ! 

His work is the duty to which he was 
born ; 

He accepts it, without ostentation or 
scorn : 

And this man is no uncommon type (I 
thank Heaven !) 

Of this land's common men. In all 
other lands, even 

The type's self is wanting. Perchance, 
't is the reason 

That Government oscillates ever 'twixt 
treason 

And tyranny elsewhere. 

"I wander away 

Too far, though, from what I was wish- 
ing to say. 

You, for instance, read Plato. You 
know that the soul 

Is immortal ; and put this in rhyme, on 
the whole, 

Very well, with sublime illustration. 
Man's heart 

Is a mystery, doubtless. You trace it 
in art : — 

The Greek Psyche, — that 's beauty, — 
the perfect ideal. 

But then comes the imperfect, perfecti- 
ble real. 

With its pained aspiration and strife. 
In those pale 



Ill-drawn virgins of Giotto you see it 

prevail. 
You have studied all this. Then, the 

universe, too, 
Is not a mere house to be lived in, for 

you. 
Geology opens the mind. So you know 
Something also of strata and fossils ; 

these show 
The bases of cosmical structure : some 

mention 
Of the nebulous theory demands your 

attention ; 
And so on. 

" In short, it is clear the interior 
Of your brain, my dear Alfred, is vastly 

superior 
In fibre, and fulness, and function, and fire, 
To that of my poor parliamentary squire ; 
But your life leaves upon me (forgive 

me this heat 
Due to friendship) the sense of a thing 

incomplete. 
You fly high. But what is it, in truth, 

you fly at ? 
My mind is not satisfied quite as to 

that. 
An old illustration 's as good as a new, 
Provided the old illustration be true. 
"We are children. Mere kites are the 

fancies we fly. 
Though we marvel to see them ascend- 
ing so high ; 
Things slight in themselves, — long- 
tailed toys, and no more. 
What is it that makes the kite steadily 

soar 
Through the realms where the cloud and 

the whirlwind have birth 
But the tie that attaches the kite to tlie 

earth ? 
I remember the lessons of childhood, you 

see, 
And the hornbook I learned on my poor 

mother's knee. 
In truth, I suspect little else do we learn 
From this great book of life, which so 

shrewdly we turn. 
Saving how to apply, with a good or bad 



What we learned in the hornbook of 
childhood. 

"Your case 
Is exactly in point. 

" Fly your kite, if you please. 
Out of sight : let it go where it will, on 
the breeze ; 



94 



LUCILE. 



But cut not the one thread by which it 

is bound, 
Be it never so high, to this poor human 

ground. 
No man is the absolute lord of his 

life. 
You, my friend, have a home, and a 

sweet and dear wife. 
If I often have sighed by my own silent 

fire. 
With the sense of a sometimes recurring 

desire 
For a voice sweet and low, or a face fond 

and fair. 
Some dull winter evening to solace and 

share 
"With the love which the world its good 

children allows 
To shake hands with, — in short, a le- 
gitimate spouse, 
This thought has consoled me : "At least 

I have given 
For my own good behavior no hostage 

to heaven." 
You have, though. Forget it not ! 

faith, if you do, 
I would rather break stones on a road 

than be you. 
If any man wilfully injured, or led 
That little girl wrong, I would sit on 

his head. 
Even though you yourself were the 

sinner ! 

"And this 
Leads me back (do not take it, dear 

cousin, amiss !) 
To the matter I meant to have men- 
tioned at once. 
But these thoughts put it out of my 

head for the nonce. 
Of all the preposterous humbugs and 

shams, 
Of all the old wolves evertaken for lambs, 
The wolf best received by the flock he 

devours 
Is that uncle-in-law, my dear Alfred, of 

yours. 
At least, this has long been my settled 

conviction. 
And I almost would venture at once the 

prediction 
That before very long — but no matter ! 

I trust 
For his sake and our own, that I may 

be unjust. 
But Heaven forgive me, if cautious I 

am oa 



The score of such men as, with both 

God and Mammon, 
Seem so shrewdly familiar. 

" Neglect not this warning. 
There were rumors afloat in the City this 

morning 
Which I scarce like the sound of. Who 

knows ? would he fleece 
At a pinch, the old hypocrite, even his 

own niece ? 
For the sake of Matilda I cannot impor- 
tune 
Your attention too early. If all your 

wife's fortune 
Is yet in the hands of that specious old 

sinner, 
Who would dice with the devil, and yet 

rise up winner, 
I say, lose no time ! get it out of the 



Of her trustee and uncle. Sir Eidley 

MacNab. 
I trust those deposits, at least, are drawn 

out, 
And safe at this moment from danger or 

doubt. 
A wink is as good as a nod to the wise. 
Verbum sap. I admit nothing yet just 

tifies 
My mistrust ; but I have in my own 

mind a notion 
That old Ridley's white waistcoat, and 

airs of devotion, 
Have long been the only ostensible cap- 
ital 
On which he does business. If so, time 

must sap it all. 
Sooner or later. Look sharp. Do not 

wait. 
Draw at once. In a fortnight it may 

be too late. 
I admit I know nothing. I can but 

suspect ; 
I give you my notions. Form yours 

and reflect. 
My love to Matilda. Her mother looks 

well. 
I saw her last week. I have nothing 

to tell 
Worth your hearing. We think that 

the Government here 
Will not last our next session. Fitz 

Funk is a peer, 
You will see by the Times. There are 

symptoms which show 
That the ministers now are preparing to 

go, 



LUCILE. 



95 



And finish their feast of the loaves and 
the fishes. 

It is evident that they are clearing the 
dishes, 

And cramming their pockets with bon- 
bons. Your news 

Will be always acceptable. Vere, of the 
Blues, 

Has bolted with Lady Selina. And so, 

You have met with that hot-headed 
Frenchman ? I know 

Tliat the man is a sad mauvais sujet. 
Take care 

Of Matilda. I wish I could join you 
both there ; 

But, before I am free, you are sure to 
be gojje. 

Good by, my dear fellow. Yours, anx- 
iously, 

"John." 



This is just the advice I myself would 

have given . 

To Lord Alfred, had I been his cousin, 

which. Heaven 
Be praised, I am not. But it reached 

him indeed 
In an unlucky hour, and received little 

heed. 
A half-languid glance was the most that 

he lent at 
That time to these homilies. Primum 

deynentat 
Quern Deus melt perdere. Alfred in fact 
Was behaving just then in a way to dis- 
tract 
Job's self had Job known him. The 

more you 'd have thought 
The Duke's court to Matilda his eye 

would have caught, 
The more did his aspect grow listless to 

hers. 
And the more did it beam to Lucile de 

Nevers. 
And Matilda, the less she found love in 

the look 
Of her husband, the less did she shrink 

from the Duke. 
With each day that passed o'er them, 

they each, heart from heart, 
Woke to feel themselves further and 

further apart. 
More and more of his time Alfred passed 

at the table ; 
Played high ; and lost more than to lose 

he was able. 



He grew feverish, querulous, absent, 
perverse, — 

And here I must mention, what made 
mattei'S worse, 

That Lucile and the Duke at the self- 
same hotel 

With the Vargraves resided. It needs 
not to tell 

That they all saw too much of each others 
The weather 

Was so fine that it brought them each 
day all together 

In the garden, to listen, of course, to the 
band. 

The house was a sort of phalanstery ; 
and 

Lucile and Matilda were pleased to dis- 
cover 

A mutual passion for music. Moreover, 

The Duke was an excellent tenor : could 
sing 

" Aftge si pure " in a way to bring down 
on the wing 

All the angels St. Cicely played to. My 
lord 

Would also at times, when he was not 
too bored, 

Play Beethoven, and Wagner's new mu- 
sic, not ill ; 

With some little things of his own, show- 
ing skill. 

For which reason, as well as for some 
others too. 

Their rooms were a pleasant onough 
rendezvous. 

Did Lucile, then, encourage (the heart- 
less coquette !) 

All the mischief she could not but mark ? 
Patience yet ! 



In that garden, an arbor, withdrawn 

from the sun, 
By laburnum and lilac with blooms over- 
run, 
Formed a vault of cool verdure, which 

made, when the heat 
Of the noontide hung heavy, a gracious 

retreat. 
And here, with some friends of their own 

little world. 
In the warm afternoons, till the shadows 

uncui'led 
From the feet of the lindens, and crept 

through the grass. 
Their blue hours would this gay little 

colony pass. 



96 



LUCILE. 



Tlie men loved to smoke, and the women 
to bring, 

Undeterred by tobacco, their work there, 
and sing 

Or converse, till the dew fell, and home- 
ward the bee 

Floated, heavy with honey. Towards 
eve there was tea 

(A luxury due to Matilda), and ice. 

Fruit, and coffee. "Ci "Ea-irepe, irdvra 
^dpeis ! 

Such an evening it was, while Matilda 
presided 

O'er the rustic arrangements thus daUy 
provided. 

With the Duke, and a small German 
Prince with a thick head, 

And an old Eussian Countess both witty 
and wicked. 

And two Austrian Colonels, — that Al- 
fred, who yet 

"Was lounging alone with his last cigar- 
ette. 

Saw Lucile de Nevers by herself pacing 
slow 

'Neath the shade of the cool linden-trees 
to and fro. 

And joining her, cried, " Thank the good 
stars, we meet ! 

I have so much to say to you ! " 

" Yes ? , . . " with her sweet 

Serene voice, she replied to him . . , 
" Yes ? and I too 

Was wishing, indeed, to say somewhat 
to you." 

She was paler just then than her wont 
was. The sound 

Of her voice had within it a sadness pro- 
found. 

" You are ill ? " he exclaimed. 

'* No ! " she hurriedly said, 

"No, no !" 

"You alarm me !" 

She drooped down her head. 

"If your thoughts have of late sought, 
or cared, to divine 

The purpose of what has been passing in 
mine. 

My farewell can scarcely alarm you," 



Alfred, 
Your farewell ! you go ! 



Lucile ! 



Lucile, 

Yes, Lord Alfred. 



Alfked, 

Reveal 
The cause of this sudden unkindness. 



Unkind? 



Lticile. 

Alfred. 
Yes ! what else is this parting ? 



LtrciLE, 

No, no ! are you blind ? 

Look into your own heart and home. 
Can you see 

No reason for this, save unkindness in 
me? 

Look into the eyes of your wife, — those 
true eyes 

Too pure and too honest in aught to dis- 
guise 

The sweet soul shining through them. 

, Alfred. 

Lucile ! (iirst and last 
Be the word, if you will !) let me speak 

of the past, 
I know now, alas ! though I know it too 

late. 
What passed at that meeting which 

settled my fate. 
Nay, nay, interrupt me not yet ! let it 

be! 
I but say what is due to yourself, — due 

to me, 
And must say it. 

He rushed incoherently on, 
Describing how, lately, the truth he had 

known. 
To explain how, and whence, he had 

wronged her before, 
All the complicate coil "wound about him 

of yore. 
All the hopes that had flown with the 

faith that was fled, 
"And then, Lucile, what was left me," 

he said, 
"When my life was defrauded of you, 

but to take 
That life, as 't was left, and endeavor to 

make 
Unobserved by another, the void which 

remained 
Unconcealed to myself ? If I have not 

attained, 
I have striven. One word of unkindness 

has never 



LUCILE. 



97 



Passed my lips to Matilda. Her least 

wish has ever 
Eeceived my submission. And if, of a 

truth, 
I have failed to renew what I felt in my 

youth, 
I at least have been loyal to what I do 

feel. 
Respect, dut}'-, honor, affection. Lucile, 
1 speak not of love now, nor love's long 

regret : 
I would not offend you, nor dare I for- 
get 
The ties that are round me. But may 

there not be 
A friendship yet hallowed between you 

and me ? 
May we nof be yet friends, — friends the 

dearest ? " 

"Alas!" 
She replied, "for one moment, perchance, 

did it pass 
Through my own heart, that dream 

which forever hath brought 
To those who indulge it in innocent 

thought 
So fatal and evil a waking ! But no. 
For in lives such as ours are, the Dream- 
tree would grow 
On the borders of Hades : beyond it, 

what lies ? 
The wheel of Ixion, alas ! and the cries 
Of the lost and tormented. Departed, 

for us. 
Are the days v/hen with innocence we 

could discuss 
Dreams like these. Fled, indeed, are 

the dreams of mxj life ! 
,0 trust me, the best friend you have is 

your wife. 
And I, — in that pure child's pure virtue, 

I bow 
To the beauty of virtue. I felt on my 

brow 
Not one blush when I first took her 

hand. With no blush 
Shall I clasp it to-night, when I leave 

you. 

"Hush ! hush! 
I would say what I wished to have said 

when you came. 
Do not think that years leave us and 

find us the same ! 
The woman you knew long ago, long 

ago, 
la no more. You yourself have within 

you, I know, 
7 



The germ of a joy in the years yet to be, 

Whereby the past years will bear fruit. 
As for me, 

I go my own way, — onward, upward ! 

"Oyet, 

Let me thank you for that which en- 
nobled regret, 

When it came, as it beautified hope ere 
it fled, — 

The love I once felt for you. True, it 
is dead, 

But it is not corrupted. I too have at 
last 

Lived to learn that love is not — (such 
love as is past, 

Such love as youth dreams of at least) — 
the sole part 

Of life, which is able to fill up the heart ; 

Even that of a woman. 

" Between you and me 

Heaven fixes a gulf, over which you 
must see 

That our guardian angels can bear ua 
no more. 

We each of us stand on an opposite shore. 

Trust a woman's opinion for once. Wom- 
en learn. 

By an instinct men never attain, to dis- 
cern 

Each other's true natures. Matilda is 
fair, 

Matilda is young — see her now, sitting 
there I — 

How tenderly fashioned — (0, is she not ? 
say,) 

To love and be loved ! " 



He turned sharply away, — 
" Matilda is young, and Matilda is fair ; 
Of all that you tell me pray deem me 

aware ; 
But Matilda 's a statue, Matilda 's a child; 
Matilda loves not — " 

Lucile quietly smiled 
As she answered him: — "Yesterday, 

all that you say 
Might be true ; it is false, wholly false, 

though, to-day." 
" How ? — what mean you ? " 

"I mean that to-day," she replied, 
' ' The statue with life has become vivi- 
fied : 
I mean that the child to a woman has 

grown : 
And that woman is jealous." 

" What ! she ? " with a tone 



98 



LUCILE. 



Of ironical wonder, he answered — 

"what, she ! 
She jealous ! — Matilda ! — of whom, 

pray ? — not me ! " 

"My lord, you deceive yourself ; no one 

but' you 
Is she jealous of. Trust me. And thank 

Heaven, too, 
That so lately this passion within her 

hath grown. 
For who shall declare, if for months she 

had known 
What for days she has known all too 

keenly, I fear. 
That knowledge perchance might have 

cost you more dear ? " 
"Explain ! explain, madam !" he cried 

in surprise ; 
And terror and anger enkindled his eyes. 

" How blind are you men ! " she re- 
plied. " Can you doubt 

That a woman, young, fair, and neg- 
lected • — " 

"Speak out!" 

He gasped with emotion. " Lucile ! 
you mean — what ? 

Do you doubt her fidelity ? " 

" Certainly not. 

Listen, to me, my friend. What I wish 
to explain 

Is so hard to shape forth. I could al- 
most refrain 

From touching a subject so fragile. 
However, 

Bear with me awhile, if I frankly en- 
deavor 

To invade for one moment your inner- 
most life. 

Your honor. Lord Alfred, and that of 
your wife. 

Are dear to me, — most dear ! And I 
am convinced 

That you rashly are risking that honor." 
He winced. 

And turned pale, as she spoke. 

She had aimed at his heart. 

And she saw, by his sudden and terrified 
start, 

That her aim had not missed. 

" Stay, Lucile ! " he exclaimed, 

" What in truth do you mean by these 
words, vaguely framed 

To alarm me ? Matilda ? — My wife ? — 
do you know ? " — 



" I know that your wife is as spotless 

as snow. 
But I know not how far your continued 

neglect 
Her nature, as well as her heart, might 

affect. 
TiU at last, by degrees, that serene at- 
mosphere 
Of her unconscious purity, faint and 

yet clear, 
Like the indistinct golden and vaporous 

fleece 
Which surrounded and hid the celestials 

in Greece 
From the glances of men, would disperse 

and depart 
At the sighs of a sick and delirious 

heart, — 
For jealousy is to a woman, be sure, 
A disease healed too oft by a criminal 

cure ; 
And the heart left too long to its ravage, 

in time 
May find weakness in virtue, reprisal 

in crime." - - 



" Such thoughts could have never," he 

faltered, ' ' I know, 
Reached the heart of Matilda." 

"Matilda? no ! 
But reflect ! when such thoughts do not 

come of themselves 
To the heart of a woman neglected, like 

elves 
That seek lonely places, — there rarely 

is wanting 
Some voice at her side, with an evil en- 
chanting 
To conjure them to her." 

" lady, beware ! 
At this moment, around me I search 

everywhere 
For a clew to your words " — 

" You mistake them," she said, 
Half fearing, indeed, the effect they had 

made. 
* ' I was putting a mere hypothetical case. " 

With a long look of trouble he gazed in 

her face. 
" Woe to him, . . ." he exclaimed . . . 

" woe to him that shall feel 
Such a hope ! for I swear, if he did but 

reveal 
One glimpse, — it should be the last 

hope of his life ! " 



LUCILE. 



99 



The clenched hand and bent eyebrow 

betokened the strife 
She had roused in his heart. 

" You forget," she began, 
" That you menace yourself. You your- 
self are the man 
That is guilty. Alas ! must it ever be so ? 
Do we stand in our own light, wherever 

we go, 
And fight our own shadows forever ? 

think ! 
The trial from which you, the stronger 
/y ones, shrink, 
'Tou ask woman, the weaker one, still 

to endure ; 
You bid her be true to the laws you 

abjuje ; 
To abide by the ties you yourselves rend 

asunder, 
"With the force that has failed you ; and 

that too, when under 
The assumption of rights which to her 

you refuse. 
The immunity claimed for yourselves 

you abuse ! 
Where the contract exists, it involves 

obligation 
To both husband and wife, in an equal 

relation. •," ,. 
You unloose, in asserting your own lib- 
erty, 
A knot, which, unloosed, leaves another 

as free. 
Then, Alfred ! be juster at heart : 

and thank Heaven 
That Heaven to your wife such a nature 

has given 
That you have not wherewith to reproach 

her, albeit 
You have cause to reproach your own 

self, could you see it ! " 



In the silence that followed the last 

word she said. 
In the heave of his chest, and the droop 

of his head, 
Poor Lucile marked her words had suf- 
ficed to impart 
A new germ of motion and life to that 

heart 
Of which he himself had so recently 

spoken 
As dead to emotion, — exhausted, or 

broken ! 
New fears would awaken new hopes in 

his life. 



In the husband indifferent no more to 

the wife 
She already, as she had foreseen, could 

discover 
That Matilda had gained, at her hands, 

a new lover. 
So after some moments of silence, whose 

spell 
They both felt, she extended her hand 

to him. . . . 



VII. 



'Well! 



"Lucile," he replied, as that soft quiet 

hand 
In his own he clasped warmly, "I both 

understand 
And obey you." 

" Thank Heaven ! " she murmured. 
"Oyet, 
One word, I beseech you ! I cannot 

forget," 
He exclaimed, "we are parting for life. 

You have shown 
My pathway to me : but say, what is 

your own ? " 
The calmness with which until then she 

had spoken 
In a moment seemed strangely and sud- 

denly broken. 
She turned from him nervously, hur- 
riedly, 
^ "Nay, 

I know not," she murmured, " I follow 

the way 
Heaven leads me; I cannot foresee to 

what end. 
I know only that far, far away it must 

tend 
From all places in which we have met, 

or might meet. 
Far away ! — onward — upward ! " 

A smile strange and sweet 
As the incense that rises from some 

sacred cup 
And mixes with music, stole forth, and 

breathed up 
Her whole face, with those words. 

"Wheresoever it be, 
May all gentlest angels attend you ! " 

sighed he, 
"And bear my heart's blessing wher- 
ever you are ! " 
Aiid her hand, with emotion, he kissed. 



100 



LUCILK 



From afar 
That kiss was, alas ! by Matilda beheld 
With far other emotions : her young 

bosom swelled, 
And her young cheek with anger was 
crimsoned. 

The Duke 
Adroitly attracted towards it her look 
By a faint but significant smile. 

X. 

Much ill-construed, 
Eenowned Bishop Berkeley has fully, for 

one, strewed 
With arguments page upon page to teach 

folks 
That the world they inhabit is only a 

hoax. 
But it surely is hard, since we can't do 

without them. 
That our senses should make us so oft 

wish to doubt them ! 



CANTO III. 



When first the red savage called Man 

strode, a king. 
Through the wilds of creation, — the 

very first thing 
That his naked intelligence taught him 

to feel 
Was the shame of himself; and the 

wish to conceal 
Was the first step in art. From the 

apron which Eve 
In Eden sat down out of fig-leaves to 

weave. 
To the furbelowed flounce and the broad 

crinoline 
Of my lady . . . you all know of course 

whom I mean . . . 
This art of concealment has greatly in- 
creased. 
A whole world lies cryptic in each 

human breast ; 
And that drama of passions as old as the 

hills, 
Which the moral of all men in each man 

fulfils, 
Is only revealed now and then to our 

eyes 
In the newspaper-files and the courts of 

assize. 



In the group seen so lately in sunlight 
assembled, 

'Mid those walks over which the labur- 
num-bough trembled. 

And the deep-bosomed lilac, empara- 
dising 

The haunts where the blackbird and 
thrush flit and sing, 

The keenest eye could but have seen, 
and seen onlj', 

A circle of friends, minded not to leavo 
lonely 

The bird on the bough, or the bee on 
the blossom ; 

Conversing at ease in the garden's green 
bosom. 

Like those wlio, when Florence was yet 
in her glories, 

Cheated death and killed time with 
Boccaccian stories. 

But at length the long twilight more 
deeply grew shaded, 

And the fair night the rosy horizon 
invaded. 

And the bee in the blossom, the bird on 
the bough. 

Through the shadowy garden were slum- 
bering now. 

The trees only, o'er every unvisited walk, 

Began on a siidden to whisper and talk. 

And, as each little sprightly and gaiTU- 
lous leaf 

Woke up with an evident sense of relief, 

They all seemed to be saying ..." Once 
more we 're alone. 

And, thank Heaven, those tiresome peo- 
ple are gone ! " 



Through the deep blue concave of the 

luminous air. 
Large, loving, and languid, the stars 

here and there. 
Like the eyes of shy passionate women, 

looked down 
O'er the dim world whose sole tender 

light was their own. 
When Matilda, alone, from her chamber 

descended. 
And entered the garden, unseen, unat- 
tended. 
Her forehead was aching and parched, 

and her breast 
By a vague inexpressible sadness op- 
( pressed ; 



LUCILE. 



101 



A sadness which led her, she scarcely 

knew how, 
And she scarcely knew why . . . (save, 

indeed, that just now 
The house, out of which with a gasp she 

had fled 
Half-stifled, seemed ready to sink on 

her head) . . . 
Out into the night air, the silence, the 

bright 
Boundless starlight, the cool isolation 

of night ! 
Her husband that day had looked once 

in her face. 
And pressed both her hands in a silent 

embrace, 
And reproachfully noticed her recent 

dejection 
"With a smile of kind wonder and tacit 

affection. 
He, of late so indifferent and listless ! 

... at last 
"Was he startled and awed by the change 

which had passed 
O'er the once radiant face of his young 

wife ? Whence came 
That long look of solicitous fondness? 

. . . the same 
Look and language of quiet affection, — 

the look 
And the language, alas ! which so often 

she took 
For pure love in the simple repose of its 

purity, — 
Her own heart thus lulled to a fatal 

security ! 
Ha ! would he deceive her again by this 

kindness ? 
Had she been, then, fool ! in her in- 
nocent blindness 
The sport of transparent illusion ? ah, 

folly ! 
And that feeling, so tranquil, so happy, 

so holy. 
She had taken, till then, in the heart, 

not alone 
Of her husband, but also, indeed, in 

her own. 
For true love, nothing else, after all, 

did it prove 
But a friendship profanely familiar ? 

" And love ? . . . 
What was love, then ? . . . not calm, 

not secure, — scarcely kind ! 
But in one. all intensest emotions com- 
bined : 
Life and death : pain and rapture." 



Thus wandering astray, 
Led by doubt, through the darkness she 

wandered away. 
All silently crossing, recrossing the night, 
With faint, meteoric, miiaculous light. 
The swift-shooting stars through the 

infinite burned, 
And into the infinite ever returned. 
And silently o'er the obscure and un- 
known 
In the heart of Matilda there darted and 

shone 
Thoughts, enkindling like meteors the 

deeps, to expire. 
Leaving traces behind them of tremulous 
lire. 



She entered that arbor of lilacs, in 
which 

The dark air with odors hung heavy and 
rich. 

Like a soul that gi'ows faint with desire. 
'T was the place 

In which she so lately had sat, face to 
face 

With her husband, — and her, the pale 
stranger detested. 

Whose presence her heart like a plague 
had infested. 

The whole spot with evil remembrance 
was haunted. 

Through the darkness there rose on the 
heart which it daunted 

Each dreary detail of that desolate day, 

So full, and yet so incomplete. Far 
away 

The acacias were muttering, like mis- 
chievous elves, 

The whole story over again to them- 
selves. 

Each word, — and each word was a 
wound ! By degrees 

Her memory mingled its voice with the 
trees. 



Like the whisper Eve heard, when she 

paused by the root 
Of the sad tree of knowledge, and gazed 

on its fruit. 
To the heart of Matilda the trees seemed 

to hiss 
Wild instructions, revealing man's last 

right, which is 
The right of reprisals. 

An image uncertain, 



102 



LUCILE. 



And vague, dimly shaped itself forth on 

the curtain 
Of the darkness around her. It came, 

and it went ; 
Through her senses a faint sense of peril 

it sent : 
It passed and repassed her ; it w^ent and 

it came 
Forever returning ; forever the same ; _ 
And forever more clearly defined ; till 

her eyes 
In that outline obscure could at last rec- 
ognize 
The man to whose image, the more and 

the more 
That her heart, now aroused from its 

calm sleep of yore. 
From her husband detached itself slowly, 

with pain. 
Her thoughts had returned, and returned 

to, again, 
As though by some secret indefinite 

law, — 
The vigilant Frenchman, — Eugene de 

Luvois ! 



A light sound behind her. She trem- 
bled. By some 
Night-witchcraft her vision a fact had 

become. 
On a sudden she felt, without turning 

to view. 
That a man was approaching behind her. 

She knew 
By the fluttering pulse which she could 

not restrain. 
And the quick -beating heart, that this 

man was Eugene. 
Her first instinct was flight ; but she felt 

her slight foot 
As heavy as though to the soil it had 

root. 
And the Duke's voice retained her, like 

fear in a dream. 



** Ah, lady ! in life there are meetings 
which seem 

Like a fate. Dare I think like a sym- 
pathy too ? 

Yet what else can I .bless for this vision 
of you ? 

Alone with my thoughts, on this star- 
lighted lawn, 

By an instinct resistless, I felt myself 
drawn 



To reivisit the memories left in the place 
"Where so lately this evening I looked 

in your face. 
And I find, — you, yourself, ^— my own 

dream ! 

"Can there be 
In this world one thought common to 

you and to me ? 
If so, . . . I, who deemed but a moment 

ago 
My heart unconipanioned, save only by 

woe. 
Should indeed be more blessed than I 

dare to believe ■ — 
Ah, but one word, but one from your 

lips to receive "... 

Interrupting him quickly, she murmured, 

" I sought, 
Here, a moment of solitude, silence, and 

thought. 
Which I needed," . . . 

" Lives solitude only for one ? 
Must its charm by my presence so soon 

be undone ? 
Ah, cannot two share it ? What needs 

it for this ? — 
The same thought in both hearts, — be 

it sorrow or bliss ; 
If my heart be the reflex of yours, lady, 

— you. 
Are you not yet alone, — even though 

we be two ? " . 

" For that," . . . said Matilda, . • . 

"needs were, you should read 
What I have in my heart." . . . 

' ' Think you, lady, indeed. 
You are yet of that age when a woman 

conceals 
In her heart so completely whatever she 

feels 
Fronf, the heart of the man whom it 

interests to know 
And find out what that feeling may be ? 

Ah, not so. 
Lady Alfred ! Forgive me that in it I 

look, 
But I read in your heart as I read in a 

book." 

"Well, Duke! and what read you 

■within it ? unless 
It be, of a truth, a profound weariness, 
And some sadness ? " 

"No doubt. To all facts there are 

laws. 



LUCILE. 



103 



Tlie effect has its cause, and I mount to 
tlie cause," 



Matilda shrank back ; for she suddenly 

found 
That a finger was pressed on the yet 

bleeding wound 
She herself had but that day perceived 

in her breast. 

" You are sad," . . . said the Duke (and 

that finger yet pressed 
"With a cruel persistence the wound it 

made bleed) — 
"You are sad. Lady Alfred, because the 

first nSfed 
Of a young and a beautiful woman is 

to be 
Beloved, and to love. You are sad : for 

you see 
That you are not beloved, as you deemed 

that you were : 
You are sad : for that knowledge hath 

left you awai-e 
That you have not yet loved, though you 

thought that you had. 
Yes, yes ! . , . you are sad — because 

knowledge is sad ! " 
He could not have read more profoundly 

her heart. 
"What gave you," she cried, with a 

terrified start, 
" Such strange power ? " . . . 

" To read in yoiir thoughts ? " he 

exclaimed, 
" lady, — a love, deep, profound, — 

be it blamed 
Or rejected, — a love, true, intense, — 

such, at least, 
As you, and you only, could wake in my 

breast ! " 

" Hush, hush ! . . . I beseech you . . . 

for pity ! " she gasped, 
Snatching hurriedly from him the hand 

he had clasped 
In her effort instinctive to fly from the 

spot. 

" For pity ?" . . . he echoed, "for pity ! 

and what 
Is the pity you owe him ? his pity for 

you! 
He, the lord of a life, fresh as new-fallen 

dew ! 



The guardian and guide of a woman, 

young, fair. 
And matchless ! (whose happiness did 

he not swear 
To cherish through life ?) he neglects her 

— for whom ? 
For a fairer than she ? No ! the rose in 

the bloom 
Of that beauty which, even when hidden, 

can prevail 
To keep sleepless with song the aroused 

nightingale. 
Is not fairer ; for even in the pure world 

of flowers 
Her symbol is not, and this poor world 

of ours 
Has no second Matilda ! For whom ? 

Let that pass ! 
'T is not I, 't is not you, that can name 

her, alas ! 
And / dare not question or judge her. 

But why. 
Why cherish the cause of your own 

misery ? 
Why think of one, lady, who thinks not 

of you ? 
Why be bound by a chain which himself 

he breaks through ? 
And why, since you have but to stretch 

forth your hand. 
The love which you need and deserve to ' 

command. 
Why shrink ? Why repel it ? " 

" O hush, sir ! hush ! " 
Cried Matilda, as though her whole heart 

were one blush. 
"Cease, cease, I conjure you, to trouble 

my life ! 
Is not Alfred your friend ? and am I not 

his wife ? " 

IX. 

"And have I not, lady," he answered, 

. . . "respected 
His rights as a friend, till himself he 

neglected 
Your rights as a wife ? Do you think 

't is alone 
For three days I have loved you ? My 

love may have grown 
I admit, day by day, since I first felt 

your eyes, 
In watching their tears, and in sounding 

}■ our sighs. 
But, lady ! I loved you before I be- 
lieved 
That your eyes ever wept, or your heart 

ever grieved. 



104 



LUCILE. 



Then I deemed you were happy — I 

deemed you possessed 
All the love you deserved, — and I hid 

in my breast 
My own love, till this hour — when I 

could not but feel 
Your grief gave me the right my own 

gi-ief to reveal ! 
I knew, years ago, of the singular power 
Which Lucile o'er your husband pos- 
sessed. Till the hour 
In which he revealed it himself, did I, 

— say ! — 
By a word, or a look, such a secret be- 
tray ? 
No ! no ! do me justice. I never have 

spoken 
Of this poor heart of mine, till all ties 

he had broken 
Which bound your heart to him. And 

now — now, that his love 
Ifor another hath left your own heart 

free to rove. 
What is it, — even now, — that I kneel 

to implore you ? 
Only this, Lady Alfred ! ... to let me 

adore you 
Unblamed : to have confidence in me : 

to spend 
On me not one thought, save to think 

me your friend. 
Let me speak to you, — ah, let me speak 

to you still ! 
Hush to silence my words in your heart, 

if you will. 
1 ask no response : I ask only your leave 
To live yet in your life, and to grieve 

when you grieve ! " 



"Leave me, leave me ! " . . . she gasped, 
with a voice thick and low 

From emotion. ' ' For pity's sake, Duke, 
let me go ! 

I feel that to blame we should both of 
us be, 

Did I linger." 

"To blame? yes, no doubt!" . . . 
answered he, 

" If the love of your husband, in bring- 
ing you peace, 

Had forbidden you hope. But he signs 
your release 

By the hand of another. One moment ! 
but one ! 

Who knows when, alas ! I may see you 
alone 



As to-night I have seen you ? or when ' 

we may meet 
As to-night we have met ? when, en- 
tranced at your feet. 
As in this blessed hour, I may ever avow 
The thoughts which are pining for utter- 
ance now ? " 
" Duke ! Duke ! " . . . she exclaimed. . . 

"for heaven's sake let me go ! 
It is late. In the house they will miss 

me, I know. 
We must not be seen here together. The 

night 
Is advancing. I feel overwhelmed with 

affright ! 
It is time to return to my lord." 

"To your lord?" 
He repeated, with lingering reproach on 

the word, 
" To your lord ? do you think he awaits 

you, in truth ? 
Is he anxiously missing your presence, 

forsooth ? 
Return to your lord ! , . . his restraint 

to renew ? 
And hinder the glances which are not for 

you ? 
No, no ! ... at this moment his looks 

seek the face 
Of another ! another is there in your 

place ! 
Another consoles him ! another receives 
The soft speech which from silence your 

absence relieves ! " 



"You mistake, sir !" . . . responded a 

voice, calm, severe. 
And sad, . . . "You mistake, sir ! that 

other is here." 

Eugfene and Matilda both started. 

" Lucile ! " 

With a half-stifled scream, as she felt 
herself reel 

From the place where she stood, cried 
Matilda. 

"Ho, oh! 

What ! eaves-dropping, madam ? " . . . 
the Duke cried . . . "And so 

You were listening ? " 

"Say, rather," she said, "that I 
heard. 

Without wishing to hear it, that in- 
famous word, — 

Heard — and therefore reply. " 

"Belle Comtesse," said the Duke, 



LUCILE. 



105 



With concentrated wrath in the savage 

rebuke, 
"Which betrayed that he felt himself 

baffled ..." you know 
That your place is not here." 
^ " Duke, " she answered him slow, 
7 My place is wherever my duty is clear ! 
And therefore my place, at this moment, 

is here. 

lady, this morning my place was beside 
Your husband, because (as she said this 

she sighed) 

1 felt that from folly fast growing to 

crime — 
The crime of self-blindness — Heaven 

yet spared me time 
To save forJ;he love of an innocent wife 
All that such love deserved in the heart 

and the life 
Of the man to whose heart and whose 

life you alone 
Can with safety confide the pure trust 

of your own." 

She turned to Matilda, and lightly laid 

on her 
Her soft, quiet hand . . . 

" 'T is, lady, the honor 
Which that man has confided to you, 

that, in spite 
Of his friend, I now trust I may yet save 

to-night — 
Save for both of you, lady ! for yours 

I revere ; 
Due de Luvois, what say you ? — my 

place is not here?" 



And, so saying, the hand of Matilda she 

caught, 
Wound one arm round her waist unre- 
sisted, and sought 
Gently, softly, to draw her away from 

the spot. 
The Duke stood confounded, and followed 

them not. 
But not yet the house had they reached 

when Lucile 
Her tender and delicate burden could 

feel 
Sink and falter beside her. 0, then she 

' knelt down, 
Flung her arms round Matilda, and 

pressed to her own 
The poor bosom beating against her. 



The moon, 



Bright, breathless, and buoyant, and 

brimful of June, 
Floated up from the liillside, sloped over 

the vale. 
And poised herself loose in mid-heaven, 

with one pale. 
Minute, scintillescent, and tremulous 

star 
Swinging under her globe like a wizard- 
lit car. 
Thus to each of those women revealing 

the face 
Of the other. Each bore on her features 

the trace 
Of a vivid emotion. A deep inward 

shame 
The cheek of Matilda had flooded with 

flame. 
With her enthusiastic emotion, Lucile 
Trembled visibly yet ; for she could not 

but feel 
That a heavenly hand was upon her that 

night. 
And it touched her pure brow to a 

heavenly light. 
"In the name of your husband, dear 

lady," she said ; 
"In the name of your mother, take 

heart ! Lift your head. 
For those blushes are noble. Alas ! do 

not trust 
To that maxim of virtue made ashes and 

dust. 
That the fault of the husband can cancel 

the wife's. 
Take heart ! and take refuge and strength 

in your life's 
Pure silence, — there, kneel, pray, and 

hope, weep, and wait ! " 
" Saved, Lucile ! " sobbed Matilda, " but 

saved to what fate ? 
Tears, prayers, yes ! not hopes." 

" Hush ! " the sweet voice replied. 
' ' Fooled away by a fancy, again to your 

side 
Must your husband return. Doubt not 

this. And return 
For the love you can give, with the love 

that you yearn 
To receive, lady. What was it chilled 

you both now ? 
Not the absence of love, but the igno- 
rance how 
Love is nourished by love. Well! hence- 
forth you will prove 
Your heart worthy of love, — since it 

knows how to love." 



106 



LUCILK 



" What gives you sucli power over me, 

that I feel 
Thus drawn to obey you ? What are 

you, Lucile ? " 
Sighed Matilda, and lifted her eyes to 

the face 
Of Lucile. 
There passed suddenly through it the 

trace 
Of deep sadness ; and o'er that fair fore- 
head came down 
A shadow which yet was too sweet for a 

frown. 
"The pupil of sorrow, perchance" . . . 

she replied. 
" Of sorrow ? " Matilda exclaimed , . . 

"0 confide 
To my heart your affliction. In all you 

made known 
I should find some instruction, no doubt, 

for my own ! " 

*' And I some consolation, no doubt ; 

for the tears 
Of another have not flowed for me many 

years." 

It was then that Matilda herself seized 

the hand 
Of Lucile in her own, and uplifted her ; 

and 
Thus together they entered the house. 



'T was the room 
Of Matilda. 

The languid and delicate gloom 
Of a lamp of pure white alabaster, aloft 
From the ceiling suspended, around it 

slept soft. 
The casement oped into the garden. 

The pale 
Cool moonlight streamed through it. 

One lone nightingale 
Sung aloof in the laurels. 

And here, side by side, 
Hand in hand, the two women sat down 

undescried. 
Save by guardian angels. 

As, when, sparkling yet 
From the rain, that, with drops that are 

jewels, leaves wet 
The bright head it humbles, a young 

rose inclines 
To some pale lily near it, the fair vision 

shines 



As one flower with two faces, in hushed, 

tearful speech. 
Like the showery whispers of flowers, 

each to each 
Linked, and leaning together, so loving, 

so fair. 
So united, yet diverse, the two women 

there 
Looked, indeed, like two flowers upon 

one drooping stem. 
In the soft light that tenderly rested on 

them. 
All that soul said to soul in that cham- 
ber, who knows ? 
All that heart gained from heart ? 

Leave the lily, the rose, 
Undisturbed with their secret within 

them. For who 
To the heart of the floweret can follow 

the dew ? 
A night full of stars ! O'er the silence, 

unseen. 
The footsteps of sentinel angels, between 
The dark land and deep sky were mov- 
ing. You heard 
Passed from earth up to heaven the 

happy watchword 
Which brightened the stars as amongst 

them it fell 
From earth's heart, which it eased . '. . 

"All is well! all is well!" 



CANTO IV. 



The Poets pour wine ; and, when 't is 

new, all decry it. 
But, once let it be old, every trifler 

must try it. 
And Polonius, who praises no wine 

that 's not Massic, 
Complains of my verse, that my verse is 

not classic. 
And Miss Tilburina, who sings, and not 

badly. 

My earlier verses, sighs "Commonplace 

-- ,„ 



As for you, Polonius, you vex me but 

slightly ; 
But you, Tilburina, your eyes beam so 

brightly 
In despite of their languishing looks, on 

my word, 



LUCILE. 



107 



That to see you look cross I can scarcely 

afford. 
Yes ! the silliest woman that smiles on 

a bard 
Better far than Longinus himself can 

reward 
The appeal to her feelings of which she 

approves ; 
And the critics I most care to please are 

the Loves. 

Alas, friend ! what boots it, a stone at 

his head 
And a brass on his breast, — when a 

man is once dead ? 
Ay ! were fame the sole guerdon, poor 

guei'don were then 
Theirs who* stripping life bare, stand 

forth models for men. 
The reformer's ? — a creed by posterity 

learnt 
A century after its author is burnt ! 
The poet's ? — a laurel that hides the 

bald brow 
It hath blighted ! The painter's ? — ask 

Eaphael now 
Which Madonna 's authentic ! The 

statesman's ? — a name 
For parties to blacken, or boys to de- 
claim ! 
The soldier's ? — three lines on the cold 

Abbey pavement ! 
Were this all the life of the wise and the 

brave meant, 
All it ends in, thrice better, Nesera, it 

were 
Unregarded to sport with thine odorous 

hair, 
Untroubled to lie at thy feet in the 

shade 
And be loved, while the roses yet bloom 

overhead. 
Than to sit by the lone hearth, and think 

the long thought, 
A severe, sad, blind schoolmaster, envied 

for naught 
Save the name of John Milton ! For all 

men, indeed, 
Who in some choice edition may gracious- 
ly read. 
With fair illustration, and erudite note, 
The song which the poet in bitterness 

wrote. 
Beat the poet, and notably beat him, in 

this — 
The joy of the genius is theirs, whilst 

they miss 



The grief of the man : Tasso's song, — 

not his madness ! 
Dante's dreams, — not his waking to 

exile and sadness ! 
Milton's music, — but not Milton's blind- 
ness ! . . . 

Yet rise. 
My Milton, and answer, with those noble 

eyes 
Which the glory of heaven hath blinded 

to earth ! 
Say — the life, in the living it, savors 

of worth : 
That the deed, in the doing it, reaches 

its aim : 
That the fact has a value apart from the 

fame : 
That a deeper delight, in the mere labor, 

pays 
Scorn of lesser delights, and laborious 

days : 
And Shakespeare, though all Shake- 
speare's writings were lost. 
And his genius, though never a trace of 

it crossed 
Posterity's path, riot the less would have 

dwelt 
In the isle with Miranda, with Hamlet 

have felt * 

All that Hamlet hath uttered, and haply 

where, pure 
On its death-bed, wronged Love lay, 

have moaned with the Moor ! 



When Lord Alfred that night to the salon 

returned 
He found it deserted. The lamp dimly 

burned 
As though half out of humor to find itself 

there 
Forced to light for no purpose a room 

that was bare. 
He sat down by the window alone. 

Never yet 
Did the heavens a lovelier evening beget 
Since Latona's bright childbed that bore 

the new moon ! 
The dark world lay still, in a sort of 

sweet swoon. 
Wide open to heaven ; and the stars on 

the stream 
Were trembling like eyes that are loved 

on the dream 
Of a lover ; and all things were glad and 

at rest 



108 



LUCILE. 



Save the unquiet heart in his own troubled 

breast. 
He endeavored to think, — an unwonted 

employment, 
Which appeared to afford him no sort 

of enjoyment. 



' ' "Withdraw into yourself. But, if peace 

you seek there for. 
Your reception, beforehand, be sure to 

prepare for," 
Wrote the tutor of Nero ; who wrote, be 

it said. 
Better far than he acted, — but peace to 

the dead ! 
He bled for his pupil : what more could 

he do? 
But Lord Alfred, when into himself he 

withdrew. 
Found all there in disorder. For more 

than an hour 
He sat with his head drooped like some 

stubborn flower 
Beaten down by the rush of the rain, — 

with such force 
Did the thick, gushing thoughts hold 

upon him the course 
Of their sudden descent, rapid, rushing, 

and dim, 
From the cloud that had darkened the 

evening for him. 
At one moment he rose, — rose and opened 

the door. 
And wistfully looked down the dark 

corridor 
Toward the room of Matilda. Anon, 

with a sigh 
Of an incomplete purpose, he crept 

quietly 
Back again to his place in a sort of sub- 
mission 
To doubt, and returned to his former 

position, — 
That loose fall of the arms, that dull 

droop of the face. 
And the eye vaguely fixed on impalpable 

space. 
The dream, which till then had been 

lulling his life. 
As once Girce the winds, had sealed 

thought ; and his wife 
And his home for a time he had quite, 

like Ulysses, 
Forgotten ; but now o'er the troubled 



Of the spirit within him, aolian, forth 

leapt 
To their freedom new-found, and resist- 

lessly swept 
All his heart into tumult, the thoughts 

which had been 
Long pent up in their mystic recesses 

unseen. 



How long he thus sat there, himself he 
knew not. 

Till he started, as though he were sud- 
denly shot. 

To the sound of a voice too familiar to 
doubt. 

Which was making some noise in the 
passage without. 

A sound English voice, with a round 
English accent. 

Which the scared German echoes resent- 
fully back sent ; 

The complaint of a much disappointed 
cab -driver 

Mingled with it, demanding some ulti- 
mate stiver : 

Then, the heavy and hurried approach 
of a boot 

Which revealed by its sound no diminu- 
tive foot : 

And the door was flung suddenly open, 
and on 

The threshold Lord Alfred by bachelor 
John 

Was seized in that sort of affectionate 
rage or 

Frenzy of hugs which some stout Ursa 
Major 

On some lean Ursa Minor would doubt- 
less bestow 

With a warmth for which only starvation 
and snow 

Could render one grateful. As soon as 
he could. 

Lord Alfred contrived to escape, nor be 
food 

Any more for those somewhat voracious 
embraces. 

Then the two men sat down and scanned 
each other's faces ; 

And Alfred could see that his cousin was 
taken 

With unwonted emotion. The hand 
that had shaken 

His own trembled somewhat. In truth 
he descried, 

At a glance, something wrong. 



LUCILE. 



109 



" What 's the matter ? " he cried. 
" What have you to tell me ? " 

John. 
What ! have you not heard ? 

Alfked. 
Beard what ? 

John. 
This sad business — 

Alfred. 

I ? no, not a word. 

John. 
Vou received my last letter ? 

Alfred. 

I think so. If not, 
What then ? 

John. 
You have acted upon it ? 



Alfred. 

John. 
The advice that I gave you — 



On what ? 



Alfred. 
Advice ? — let me see ! 
You aUoays are giving advice. Jack, to 

me. 
About Parliament was it ? 

John. 

Hang Parliament ! no, 
The Bank, the Bank, AKred ! 

Alfred. 
What Bank ? 

John. 

Heavens ! I know 
You are careless ; — but surely you have 

not forgotten, — 
Or neglected ... I warned you the whole 

thing was rotten. 
You have drawn those deposits at least ? 

Alfred. 

No, I meant 
To have written to-day ; but the note 

shall be sent 
To-morrow, however. 



John. 

To-morrow ? too late ! 
Too late ! 0, what devil bewitched you 
to wait ? 

Alfred. 
Mercy save us ! you don't mean to say . . . 

John. 



Alfred. 
What ! Sir Ridley ? . . . 



Yes, I do. 



John. 
Smashed, broken, blown up, bolted 
too 1 

Alfred. 
But his own niece? ... In heaven's 
name. Jack . . . 

John. 

0, I told you 
The old hypocritical scoundrel would . . . 

Alfred. 

Hold ! you 
Surely can't mean we are ruined ? 

John. 

Sit down I 
A fortnight ago a report about town 
Made me most apprehensive. Alas, and 

alas ! 
I at once wrote and warned you. Well, 

now let that pass. 
A run on the Bank about five days ago 
Confirmed my forebodings too terribly, 

though. 
I drove down to the city at once : found 

the door 
Of the Bank close : the Bank had stopped 

payment at four. 
Next morning the failure was known to 

be fraud : 
Warrant out for MacNab ; but MacNali 

was abroad : 
Gone — we cannot tell where. I en. 

deavored to get 
Information : have learned nothing cer. 

tain as yet, — 
Not even the way that old Eidley was 

gone : 
Or with those securities what he had 

done : 
Or whether they had been already called 

out : 



110 



LUCILE. 



If they are not, their fate is, I fear, past 

a doubt. 
Twenty families ruined, they say : what 

was left, — 
Unable to find any clew to the cleft 
The old fox ran to earth in, — but join 

you as fast 
As I could, my dear Alfred ? * 



He stopped here, aghast 
At the change in his cousin, the hue of 

whose face 
Had grown livid ; and glassy his eyes 

fixed on space. 
"Courage, courage!" . .. said John, 

..." bear the blow like a man ! " 
And he caught the cold hand of Lord 

Alfred. There ran 
Through that hand a quick tremor. " I 

bear it," he said, 
" But Matilda ? the blow is to her ! " 

And his head 
Seemed forced down, as he said it. 

John. 

Matilda ? Pooh, pooh ! 
I half think I know the girl better than 

you. 
She has courage enough — and to spare. 

She cares less 
Than most women for luxury, nonsense, 
and dress. 

Alfred. 
The fault has been mine. 

Jqhn. 

Be it yours to repair it : 
If you did not avert, you may help her 
to bear it. 

Alfred. 
I might have averted. 

John. 

Perhaps so. But now 
There is clearly no use in considering 
how, 

* These events, it is needless to say, Mr. Morse, 
Took place when Bad News as yet travelled 

by horse. 
Ere the world, like a cockchafer, buzzed on a 

wire. 
Or Time was calcined by electrical fire ; 
Ere a cable went under the hoary Atlantic, 
Or the word Telegram drove graiumariaus 

frantic. 



Or whence, came the mischief. The 

mischief is here. 
Broken shins are not mended by crying, 

— that 's clear ! 
One has but to rub jhem, and get up 

again, 
And push on, — and not think too much 

of the pain. 
And at least it is much that you see 

that to her 
You owe too much to think of yourself. 

You must stir 
And arouse yourself, Alfred, for her 

sake. "Who knows ? 
Something yet may be saved from this 

wreck. I suppose 
We shall make him disgorge all he can, 

at the least. 

" Jack, I have been a brute idiot ! a 

beast ! 
A fool ! I have sinned, and to her I 

have sinned ! 
I have been heedless, blind, inexcusably 

blind ! 
And now, in a flash, I see all things ! " 

As though 
To shut out the vision, he bowed his 

head low 
On his hands ; and the great tears in 

silence rolled on. 
And fell momently, heavily, one after 

one. 
John felt no desire to find instant 

relief 
For the trouble he witnessed. 

He guessed, in the grief 
Of his cousin, the broken and heartfelt 

admission 
Of some error demanding a heartfelt 

contrition : 
Some oblivion perchance which could 

plead less excuse 
To the heart of a man re-aroused to the 

use 
Of the conscience God gave him, than. 

simply and merely 
The neglect for M'hich now he was pay- 
ing so dearly. 
So he rose without speaking, and paced 

lip and down 
The long room, much afiiicted, indeed, 

in his own 
Cordial heart for Matilda. 

Thus, silently lost 
In his anxious reflections, he crossed 

t;nd recrossed 



LUCILE. 



Ill 



The place where his cousin yet hope- 
lessly hung 

O'er the table ; his fingers entwisted 
among 

The rich curls they were knotting and 
dragging : and there, 

That sound of all sounds the most pain- 
ful to hear, 

The sobs of a man ! Yet so far in his own 

Kindly thoughts was he plunged, he al- 
ready had gi'own 

Unconscious of Alfred. 

And so for a space 

There was silence hetween them. 

VII. 

At last, with sad face 
He stopped sftort, and bent on his cousin 

awhile 
A pained sort of wistful, compassionate 

smile. 
Approached him, — stood o'er him, — 

and suddenly laid 
One hand on his shoulder — 

" Where is she ? " he said. 
Alfred lifted his face all disfigured with 

tears 
And gazed vacantly at him, like one 

that appears 
In some foreign language to hear himself 

greeted. 
Unable to answer. 

" Where is she ? " repeated 
His cousin. 

He motioned his hand to the door ; 
"There, I think," he replied. Cousin 

John said no more. 
And appeared to relapse to his own cog- 
itations, 
Of which not a gesture vouchsafed indi- 
cations. 
So again there was silence. 

A timepiece at last 
Struck the twelve strokes of midnight. 

Eoused by them, he cast 
A half-look to the dial ; then quietly 

threw 
His arm round the neck of his cousin, 

and drew 
The hands down from his face. 

" It is time she should know 
What has happened," he said, ... "let 

us go to her now." 
Alfred started at once to his feet. 

Drawn and wan 
Though his face, he looked more than 

his wont was — a man. 



Strong for once, in his weatu.-ss. Up- 
lifted, filled through 
With a mauly resolve. 

If that axiom be true 
Of the " Sum quia cogito," I must opine 
That " id sum qv/od cogito " -. — that 

which, in fine, 
A man thinks and feels, with his whole 

force of thought 
And feeling, the man is himself. 

He had fought 
With himself, and rose up from his self- 
overthrow 
Tha survivor of much which that stiife 

had laid low. 
At his feet, as he rose at the name of 

his wife, 
Lay in ruins the brilliant unrealized 

life 
Which, though yet unfulfilled, seemed 

till then, in that name, 
To be his, had he claimed it. The 

man's dream of fame 
And of power fell shattered before him ; 

and only 
There rested the heart of the woman, so 

lonely 
In all save the love he could give her. 

The lord 
Of that heart he arose. Blush not, 

Muse, to record 
That his first thought, and last, at that 

moment was not 
Of the power and fame that seemed lost 

to his lot. 
But the love that was left to it ; not of 

the pelf 
He had cared for, yet squandered ; and 

not of himself, 
But of her ; as he murmured, 

" One moment, dear Jack t 
We have grown up from boyhood to- 
gether. Our track 
Has been through the same meadows in 

childhood : in youth 
Through the same silent gateways, to 

manhood. In truth, 
There is none that can know me as you 

do ; and none 
To whom I more wish to believe myself 

known. 
Speak the truth ; you are not wont to 

mince it, I know. 
Nor I, shall I shirk it, or shrink from it 

now. 
In despite of a wanton behavior, in 

spite 



112 



LUCILE. 



Of vanity, folly, and pride, Jack, which 

might 
Have turned from me many a heart 

strong and true 
As your own, I have never turned round 

and missed YOU . 
From my side in one hour of affliction 

or doubt 
By my own blind and heedless self-will 

brought about. 
Tell me truth. Do I owe this alone to 

the sake 
Of those old recollections of boyhood 

that make 
In your heart yet some clinging and 

crying appeal 
From a judgment more harsh, which I 

cannot but feel 
Might have sentenced our friendship to 

death long ago ? 
Or is it . . . (I would I could deem it 

were so !) 
That, not all overlaid by a listless exte- 
rior. 
Your heart has divined in me something 

superior 
To that which I seem ; from my inner- 
most nature 
Not wholly expelled by the world's 

usurpature ? 
Some instinct of earnestness, truth, or 

desire 
For truth? Some one spark of the 

soul's native fire 
Moving imder the ashes, and cinders, 

and dust 
Which life hath heaped o'er it ? Some 

one fact to trust 
And to hope in ? Or by you alone am I 

deemed 
The mere frivolous fool I so often have 

seemed 
To my own self?" 

John. 
No, Alfred ! you will, I believe, 
Be true, at the last, to what now makes 

you grieve 
For having belied your true nature so 

long. 
Necessity is a stern teacher. Be strong ! 

" Do you think," he resumed . . . "what 
I feel while I speak 

Is no more than a transient emotion, as 
weak 

As these weak tears would seem to be- 
token i'cV 



John. 
No! 
Alfred. 
Thank you, cousin ! your hand then. 

And now I will go 
Alone, Jack. Trust to me. 

VIII. 

John. 

I do. But 't is late. 
If slie sleeps, you '11 not wake her. 

Alfred. 

No, no ! it will wait 
(Poor infant !) too surely, this mission 

of sorrow ; 
If she sleeps, I will not mar her dreams 

of to-morrow. 
He opened the door, and passed out. 

Cousin John 
Watched him wistful, and left him to 
seek her alone. 



His heart beat so loud when he knocked 

at her door. 
He could hear no reply from within. 

Yet once more 
He knocked lightly. No answer. The 

handle he tried : 
The door opened : he entered the room 

undescried. 



No brighter than is that dim circlet of 

light 
Which enhaloes the moon when rams 

form on the night, 
The pale lamp and indistinct radiance 

shed 
Round the chamber, in which at her 

pure snowy bed 
Matilda was kneeling ; so wrapt in deep 

prayer 
That she knew not her husband stood 

watching her there. 
With the lamplight the moonlight had 

mingled a faint 
And unearthly effulgence which seemed 

to acquaint 
The whole place vnth a, sense of deep 

peace made secure 
By the presence of something angelic 

and pure. 
And not purer some angel Grief carves 

o'er the tomb 



LUCILE. 



113 



Where Love lies, than the lady that 
kneeled in that gloom. 

She had put off her dress ; and she 
looked to his eyes 

Like a young soul escaped from its 
eaVthly disguise ; 

Her fair neck and innocent shoulders 
were bare, 

And over them rippled her soft golden 
hair ; 

Her simple and slender white bodice 
unlaced 

Confined not one curve of her delicate 
waist. 

As the light that, from water reflected, 
forever 

Trembles up through the tremulous reeds 
of a river. 

So the beam of her beauty went trem- 
bling in him. 

Through the thoughts it suffused with 
a sense soft and dim, 

Keproduciug itself in the broken and 
bright 

Lapse and pulse of a million emotions. 
That sight 

Bowed his heart, bowed his knee. Know- 
ing scarce what he did, 

To her side through the chamber he si- 
lently slid. 

And knelt down beside her, — and prayed 
at her side. 



Upstarting, she then for the first time 

descried 
That her husband was near her ; suff"used 

with the blush 
"Which came o'er her soft pallid cheek 

with a gush 
Where the tears sparkled yet. 

As a young fawn unconches, 
Shy with fear, from the fern where some 

hunter approaches. 
She shrank back ; he caught her, and 

circling his arm 
Round her waist, on her brow pressed 

one kiss long and warm. 
Then her fear changed in impulse ; and 

hiding her face 
On his breast,, she hung locked in a 

clinging embrace 
With her soft arms wound heavily round 

him, as though 
She feared, if their clasp were relaxed, 

he would go : 
8 



Her smooth naked shoulders, uncared 

for, convulsed 
By sob after sob, while her bosom yet 

pulsed 
In its pressure on his, as the eff"ort with- 
in it 
Lived and died with each tender tumul- 
tuous minute. 
" Alfred, Alfred ! forgive me," she 

cried, — 
"Forgive me !" 

"Forgive you, my poor child!" he 

sighed ; 
" But I never have blamed you for aught 

that I know. 
And I have not one thought that re- 
proaches you now." 
Fi'om her arms he unwound himself 

gently. And so 
He forced her down softly beside him. 

Below 
The canopy shading their couch, they 

sat down. 
And he said, clasping firmly her hand 

in his own, 
" When a proud man, Matilda, has found 

out at length. 
That he is but a child in the midst of 

his strength. 
But a fool in his wisdom, to whom can 

he own 
The weakness A^'hich thus to himself hath 

been shown ? 
From whom seek the strength which his 

need of is sore. 
Although in his pride he might perish, 

before 
He could plead for the one, or the other 

avow 
'Mid his intimate friends ? Wife of mine, 

tell me now, 
Do you join me in feeling, in that dark- 
ened hour. 
The sole friend that can have the right 

or the power 
To be at his side, is the woman that 

shares 
His fate, if he falter ; the woman that 

bears 
The name dear for her sake, and hallows 

the life 
She has mingled her own with, — in 

sljort, that man's wife ? " 
"Yes," murmured Matilda, "0 yes !" 
"Then," he cried, 
"This chamber in which we two sit, 

side by side 



114 



LUCILE. 



(And his arm, as he spoke, seemed more 
softly to press her). 

Is now a confessional, — yo^l, my con- 
fessor ! " 

"I?" she faltered, and timidly lifted 
her head. 

"Yes ! but first answer one other ques- 
tion," he said : 
>v When a woman once feels that she is 
not alone ; 

That the heart of another is warmed by 
her own ; 

That another feels with her whatever 
she feel, 

And halves her existence in woe or in 
weal ; 

That a man for her sake will, so long as 
he lives. 

Live to put forth his strength which the 
thought of her gives ; 

Live to shield her from want, and to 
share with her sorrow ; 

Live to solace the day, and provide for 
the moiTow : 

"Will that woman feel less than another, 

say, 

The loss of what life, sparing this, takes 

away ? 
"Will she feel (feeling this), when calam- 
ities come, 
That they brighten the heart, though 

they darken the home ? '>^ 
She turned, like a soft rainy heaven, on 

him 
Eyes that smiled through fresh tears, 

trustful, tender, and dim. 
"That woman," shenmrmured, "indeed 

were thrice blest ! " 
" Then courage, true wife of my heart ! " 

to his breast 
As he folded and gathered her closely, 

he cried. 
" For the refuge, to-night in these arms 

opened wide 
To your heart, can be never closed to it 

again. 
And this room is for both an asylum ! 

For when 
I passed through that door, at the door 

1 left there 

A calamity, sudden, and heavy to bear. 
One step from that threshold, and daily, 

I fear, 
We must face it henceforth : but it 

enters not here, 
For that door shuts it out, and admits 

here alone 



A heart which calamity leaves all your 

own ! " 
She started ..." Calamity, Alfred ! to 

you ? " 
"To both, my poor child, but 'twill 

bring with it too 
The courage, 1 trust, to subdue it." 

" speak ! 
Speak ! " she faltered in tones timid, 

anxious, and weak. 
"0 yet for a moment," he said, "hear 

me on! 
Matilda, this mom we went forth in the 

sun. 
Like those children of sunshine, the 

bright summer flies. 
That sport in the sunbeam, and play 

through the skies 
While the skies smile, and heed not 

each other : at last, ' 
When their sunbeam is gone, and their 

sky overcast. 
Who recks in what ruin they fold their 

wet wings ? 
So indeed the mom found us, — poor 

frivolous things ! 
Now our sky is o'ercast, and our sun- 
beam is set, 
And the night brings its darkness around 

us. 0, yet. 
Have we weathered no storm through 

those twelve cloudless hours ? 
Yes ; you, too, have wept ! 

"While the world was yet ours, 
While its sun was upon us, its incense 

streamed to us. 
And its myriad voices of joy seemed to 

woo us. 
We strayed from each other, too far, it 

may be, 
Nor, wantonly wandering, then did 1 see 
How deep was my need of thee, dearest, 

how great 
Was thy claim on my heart and thy 

share in my fate ! 
But, Matilda, an angel was near us, 

meanwhile. 
Watching o'er us, to warn, and to rescue ! 
" That smile 
Which you saw with suspicion, that 

presence you eyed 
With resentment, an angel's they were 

at your side 
And at mine ; nor perchance is the day 

all so far. 
When we both in our prayers, when 

most heartfelt they are, 



LUCILK 



115 



May murmur the name of that woman 

now gone 
From our sight evermore. 

" Here, this evening, alone, 
I seek your forgiveness, in opening my 

heart 
Unto yours, — from this clasp be it never 

to part ! 
Matilda, the fortune you brought me is 

gone. 
But a prize richer far than that fortune 

has won 
It is yours to confer, and I kneel for 

that prize, 
'T is the heart of my wife ! " With suf- 
fused happy eyes 
She sprang from her seat, flung her 

arms wide apart. 
And tenderly closing them round him, 

his heai't 
Clasped in one close embrace to her 

bosom ; and there 
Drooped her head on his shoulder ; and 

sobbed. 

Not despair, 
Not sorrow, not even the sense of her 

loss. 
Flowed in those happy tears, so oblivi- 
ous she was 
Of all save the sense of her own love ! 

Anon, 
However, his words rushed back to her. 

" All gone. 
The fortune you brought me ! " 

And eyes that were dim 
"With soft tears she upraised : but those 

tears were for him. 
" Gone ! my husband ? " she said, "tell 

me ail ! see ! I need, 
To sober this rapture, so selfish in- 
deed. 
Fuller sense of affliction." 

" Poor innocent child ! " 
He kissed her fair forehead, and mourn- 
fully smiled. 
As he told her the tale he had heard, — 

something more 
The gain found in loss of what gain lost 

of yore. 
"Rest, my heart, and my brain, and 

my right hand for you ; 
And with these, my Matilda, what may 

I not do ? 
You know not, I knew not myself till 

this hour. 
Which so sternly revealed it, my nature's 

full power." 



" And I too," she murmured, " I too am 

no more 
The mere infant at heart you have known 

me bet'oi-e. 
I have suffered since then. I have learned 

much in life. 
take, with the faith I have pledged as 

a wife. 
The heart I have learned as a woman to 

feel! 
For I — love you, my husband ! " 

As though to conceal 
Less from him, than herself, what that 

motion expressed. 
She dropped her bright head, and hid 

all on his breast. 
" lovely as woman, beloved as wife ! 
Evening star of my heart, light forever 

my life ! 
If from eyes fixed too long on this base 

earth thus far 
You have missed your due homage, dear. 

guardian star. 
Believe that, uplifting those eyes unto 

heaven. 
There I see you, and know you, and 

bless the light given 
To lead me to life's late achievement ; 

my own. 
My blessing, my treasure, my all things 

in one ! " 



How lovely she looked in the lovely 

moonlight. 
That streamed through the pane from 

the blue balmy night ! 
How lovely she looked in her own lovely 

youth. 
As she clung to his side full of trust, and 

of truth ! 
How lovely to him as he tenderly pressed 
Her young head on his bosom, and sadly 

caressed 
The glittering ti'esses which now shaken 

loose 
Showered gold in his hand, as he 

smoothed them ! 



Muse, 
Interpose not one pulse of thine own 

beating heart 
'Twixt these two silent souls ! There's 

a joy beyond art. 
And beyond sound the music it makes 

in the breast. 



116 



LUCILE. 



Here were lovers twice wed, that were 

happy at least ! 
No music, save such as the nightingales 

sung, 
Breathed their bridals abroad ; and no 

cresset, uphung, 
Lit that festival hour, save what soft 

light was given 
From the pure stars that peopled the 

deep-purple heaven. 
He opened the casement : he led her 

with hira, 
Hushed in heart, to the terrace, dipped 

cool in the dim 
Lustrous gloom of the shadowy laurels. 

They heard 
Aloof the invisible, rapturous bird, 
"With her wild note bewildering the 

woodlands : they saw 
Ifot unheard, afar off, the hill-rivulet 

draw 
His long ripple of moon-kindled wavelets 

with cheer 
From the throat of the vale ; o'er the 

dark-sapphire sphere 
The mild, multitudinous lights lay asleep, 
Pastured free on the midnight, and bright 

as the sheep 
Of Apollo in pastoral Thrace ; from 

unknown 
Hollow glooms freshened odors around 

them were blown 
Intermittingly ; then the moon dropped 

from their sight, 
Immersed in the mountains, and put out 

the light 
Which no longer they needed to read on 

the face 
Of each other's life's last revelation. 

The place 
Slept sumptuous round them ; and Na- 
ture, that never 
Sleeps, but waking reposes, with patient 

endeavor 
Continued aboutthem, unheeded, unseen, 
Her old, quiet toil in the heart of the 

green 
Summer silence, preparing new buds for 

new blossoms. 
And stealing a finger of change o'er the 

bosoms 
Of the unconscious woodlands ; and 

Time, that halts not 
His forces, how lovely soever the spot 
Where their march lies, — the wary, gray 
strategist. Time, 



With the armies of Life, lay encamped, 
— Grief and Crime, 

Love and Faith, in the darkness un- 
heeded ; maturing, 

For his great war with man, new sur- 
prises ; securing 

All outlets, pursuing and pushing his 
foe 

To his last narrow refuge, — the grave. 



Sweetly though 

Smiled the stars like new hopes out of 
heaven, and sweetly 

Their hearts beat thanksgiving for all 
things, completely 

Confiding in that yet untrodden exist- 
ence 

Over which they were pausing. To- 
morrow, resistance 

And struggle ; to-night. Love his hal- 
lowed device 

Hung forth, and proclaimed his serene 
armistice. 



CANTO V. 



When Lucile left Matilda, she sat for 
long hours 

In her chamber, fatigued by long over- 
wrought powers, 

'Mid the signs of departure, about to 
turn back 

To her old vacant life, on her old home- 
less track. 

She felt her heart falter within her. 
She sat 

Like some poor player, gazing dejectedly 
at 

The insignia of royalty worn for a night ; 

Exhausted, fatigued, with the dazzle 
and light. 

And the eflbrt of passionate feigning; 
who thinks 

Of her own meagre, rush-lighted garret, 
and shrinks 

From the chill of the change that awaits 
her. 

ir. 
From these 

Oppressive, and comfortless, blank rev- 
eries. 

Unable to sleep, she descended the stair 

That led from her room to the garden. 



LUCILE. 



117 



The air, 
With the chill of the dawn, yet unrisen, 

but at hand, 
Strangely smote on her feverish forehead. 

The laud 
Lay in darkness and change, like a world 

in its grave : 
No sound, save the voice of the long 

river wave, 
And the crickets that sing all the night ! 
She stood still. 
Vaguely watching the thin cloud that 

curled on the hill. 
Emotions, long pent in her breast, were 

at stir, 
And the deeps of the spirit were troubled 

in her. 
Ah, pale woirlftn ! what, with that heart- 
broken look. 
Didst thou read then in nature's weird 

heart-breaking book ? 
Have the wild rains of heaven a father ? 

and who 
Hath in pity begotten the drops of the 

dew ? 
Orion, Arcturus, who pilots them both ? 
What leads forth in his season the bright 

Mazaroth ? 
Hath the darkness a dwelling, — save 

there, in those eyes ? 
And what name hath that half-revealed 

hope in the skies ? 
Ay, question, and listen ! What an- 
swer ? 

The sound 
Of the long river wave through its stone- 
troubled bound, 
And the crickets that sing all the night. 
There are hours 
Which belong to unknown, sujjernatural 

powers, 
Whose sudden and solemn suggestions 

are all 
That to this race of worms — stinging 

creatures, that crawl, 
Lie, and fear, and die daily, beneath 

their own stings — 
Can excuse the blind boast of inherited 

wings. 
When the soul, on the impulse of an- 
guish, hath passed 
Beyond anguish, and risen into rapture 

at last ; 
When she traverses nature and space, 

till she stands 
In the Chamber of Fate ; where, through 

tremulous hands, 



Hum the threads from an old-fashioned 

distaff uncurled. 
And those three blind old women sit 

spinning the world. 



The dark was blanched wan, overhead. 

One green star 
Was slipping from sight in the pale void 

afar ; 
The spirits of change, and of awe, with 

faint breath 
Were shifting the midnight, above and 

beneath. 
The spirits of awe and of change were 

around. 
And about, and upon her. 

A dull muffled sound. 
And a hand on her hand, like a ghostly 

surprise. 
And she felt herself fixed by the hot 

hollow eyes 
Of the Frenchman before her : those 

eyes seemed to burn, 
And scorch out the darkness between 

them, and turn 
Into fire as they fixed her. He looked 

like the shade 
Of a creature by fancy from solitude 

made. 
And sent forth by the darkness to scare 

and oppress 
Some soul of a monk in a waste wilder- 
ness. 



" At last, then, — at last, and alone, — 

I and thou, 
Lucile de Nevers, have we met ? 

"Hush ! I know 
Not for me was the tryst. Never mind ! 

it is mine ; 
And whatever led hither those proud 

steps of thine, 
They remove not, until we have spoken. 

My hour 
Is come ; and it holds thee and me in its 

])Ower, 
As the darkness holds both the horizons. 

'T is well ! 
The timidest maiden that e'er to the spell 
Of her first lover's vows listened, hushed 

with delight, 
When soft stars-were brightly uphanging 

the night, 
Never listened, I swear, more unques- 

tioningly, 



118 



LUCILE. 



Than thy fate hath compelled thee to 

listen to me ! " 
To the sound of his voice, as though out 

of a dream, 
She appeared with a start to awaken. 

The stream, 
When he ceased, took the night with its 

moaning again, 
Like the voices of spirits departing in 

pain. 
" Continue," she answered, " I listen to 

hear." 
For a moment he did not reply. 

Through the drear 
And dim light between them, she saw 

that his face 
Was disturbed. To and fro he contin- 
ued to pace, 
With his arms folded close, and the low 

restless stride 
Of SI panther, in circles arorrnd her, first 

wide. 
Then narrower, nearer, and quicker. 

At last 
He stood still, and one long look upon 

her he cast. 
" Lucile, dost thou dare to look into 

my face ? 
Is the sight so repugnant ? ha, well ! 

Canst thou trace 
One word of thy writing in this wicked 

scroll. 
With thine own name scrawled through 

_it, defacing a soul '!" 
In his face there was something so wrath- 
ful and wild, 
That the sight of it scared her. 

He saw it, and smiled, 
And then turned him from her, renewing 

again 
That short, restless stride ; as though 

searching in vain 
For the point of some purpose within 

him. 

" Lucile, 
You shudder to look in my face : do you 

feel 
No reproach when you look in your own 

heart ? " 

" No, Duke, 
In my conscience I do not deserve your 

rebuke : 
Not yours ! " she replied. 

"No," he muttered again, 
•' Gentle justice ! you first bid Life hope 

not, and then 
To Despair you say ' Act not ! ' " 



He watched her awhile 
With a chill sort of restless and suffering 

smile. 
They stood by the wall of the garden. 

The skies, 
Dark, sombre, were troubled with vague 

prophecies 
Of the dawn yet far distant. The moon 

had long set. 
And all in a glimmering light, pale, and 

wet 
With the night-dews, the white roses 

sullenly loomed 
Round about her. She spoke not. At 

length he resumed. 
" Wretched creatures we are ! I and 

thou, — one and all ! 
Only able to injure each other, and fall 
Soon or late, in that void which our- 
selves we prepare 
For the souls that we boast of ! weak 

insects we are ! 
heaven ! and what has become of 

them ? all 
Those instincts of Eden surviving the 

Fall: 
That glorious faith in inherited things : 
That sense in the soul of the length of 

her wings ; 
Gone ! all gone ! and the wail of the 

night- wind sounds human, 
Bewailing those once nightly visitants ! 

Woman, 
Woman, what hast thou done with my 

youth ? Give again. 
Give me back the young heart that I 

gave thee ... in vain ! " 
" Duke ! " she faltered. 

"Yes, yes ! " he went on, " I was not 
Always thus ! what I once was, 1 have 

not forgot." 



As the wind that heaps sand in a desert, 

there stirred 
Through his voice an emotion that swept 

every word 
Into one angry wail ; as, with feverish 

change. 
He continued his monologue, fitful and 

strange. 
"Woe to him, in whose nature, once 

kindled, the torch 
Of Passion burns downward to blacken 

and scorch ! 



LUCILE. 



119 



But flhame, shame and sorrow, woman, 

to thee 

Whose hand sowed the seed of destruction 
in me ! 

Whose lip taught the lesson of falsehood 
to mine ! 

Whose looks made me doubt lies that 
looked so divine ! 

My soul by thy beauty was slain in its 
sleep : 

And if tears I mistrust, 't is that thou 
too canst weep ! 

Well ! . . . how utter soever it be, one 
mistake 

In the love of a man, what more change 
need it make 

In the steps otliis soul through the course 
love began, 

Than all other mistakes in the life of a 
man ? 

And I said to myself, ' I am young yet : 
too young 

To have wholly survived my own por- 
tion among 

The great needs of man's life, or ex- 
hausted its joys ; 

What is broken ? one only of youth's 
pleasant toys ! 

Shall I be the less welcome, wherever I 
go. 

For one passion survived ? No ! the 
roses will blow 

As of yore, as of yore will the nightin- 
gales sing, 

Not less sweetly for one blossom can- 
celled from Spring ! 

Hast thou loved, my heart ? to thy 
love yet remains 

All the wide loving-kindness of nature. 
The plains 

And the hills with each summer their 
verdure renew. 

Wouldst thou be as they are ? do thou 
then as they do, 

Let the dead sleep in peace. Would 
the living divine 

Where they slumber? Let only new 
flowers be the sign ! 

"Vain ! all vain ! . . . For when, laugh- 
ing, the wine T would quaff, 

I remembered too well all it cost me to 
laugh. 

Through the revel it was but the old 
song I heard, 

Through the crowd the old footsteps 
behind me they stirred. 



In the night-wind, the starlight, the 

murnmrs of even. 
In the ardors of earth, and the languors 

of heaven, 
I could trace nothing more, nothing more 

through the spheres, 
But the sound of old sobs, and the 

tracks of old tears ! 
It was with me the night long in dream- 

ing or waking, 
It abided in loathing, when daylight 

was breaking. 
The burden of the bitterness in me ! 

Behold, 
All my days were become as a tale that 

is told. 
And I said to my sight, ' No good thing 

shalt thou see. 
For the noonday is turned to darkness 

in me. 
In the house of Oblivion my bed I have 

made.' 
And I said to the grave, 'Lo, my father !' 

and said 
To the worm, ' Lo, my sister ! ' The 

dust to the dust, 
And one end to the wicked shall be with 

the just ! " 

vir. 
He ceased, as a wind that wails out on 

the night. 
And moans itself mute. Through the 

indistinct light 
A voice clear, and tender, and pure with 

a tone 
Of ineffable pity replied to his own. 
"And say you, and deem you, that I 

wrecked your life ? 
Alas ! Due de Luvois, had I been your 

wife 
By a fraud of the heart which could 

yield you alone 
For the love in your nature a lie in my 

own. 
Should I not, in deceiving, have injured 

you worse ? 
Yes, I then should have merited justly 

your curse. 
For I then should have wronged you ! " 
"Wronged ! ah, is it so ? 
You could never have loved me ? " 

"Duke !" 

"Never ? no !'* 

(He broke into a fierce, angry laugh, as 

he said) 



120 



LUCILE. 



" Yet, lady, you knew that I loved you : 

you led 
My love on to lay to its heart, hour by 

hour, 
All the pale, cruel, beautiful, passionless 

power 
Shut up in that cold face of yours ! was 

this well ? 
But enough ! not on you would I vent 

the wild hell 
Which has grown in my heart. that 

man, first and last 
He tramples in triumph my life ! he has 

cast 
His shadow 'twixt me and the sun . . . 

let it pass ! 
My hate yet may find him ! " 

She murmured, "Alas ! 
These words, at least, spare me the pain 

of reply. 
Enough, Due de Luvois ! farewell. I 

shall try 
To forget every word I have heard, 

every sight 
That has grieved and appalled me in 

this wretched night 
Which must witness our final farewell. 

May you, Duke, 
Never know greater cause your own 

heart to rebuke 
Than mine thus to wrong and afSict you 

have had ! 
Adieu ! " 

'* Stay, Lucile, stay ! "... he groaned, 

... "I am mad. 
Brutalized, blind with pain ! I know 

not what I said. 
I meant it not. But " (he moaned, 

drooping his head) 
" Forgive me ! I — have I so wronged 

you, Lucile ? 
I . . . have I . . . forgive me, forgive me ! " 

"I feel 
Only sad, very sad to the soul," she 

said, "far. 
Far too sad for resentment." 

" Yet stand as you are 
One moment," he murmured. " I think, 

could I gaze 
Thus awhile on your face, the old inno- 
cent days 
Would come back upon me, and this 

scorching heart 
Free itself in hot tears. Do not, do not 

depart 
Thus, Lucile ! stay one moment. I 

know why you shrink. 



Why you shudder ; I read in your face 

what you think. 
Do not speak to me of itr And yet, if 

you will. 
Whatever you say, my own lips shall be 

still. 
I lied. And the truth, now, could justify 

naught. 
There are battles, it may be, in which 

to have fought 
Is more shameful than, simply, to faiL 

Yet, Lucile, 
Had you helped me to bear what you 

forced me to feel — " 

"Could I help you," she murmured, 

"but what can I say . 
That your life will respond to ? " "My 

life ? " he sighed. " Nay, 
My life hath brought forth only evil, 

and there 
The wild wind hath planted the wild 

weed : yet ere 
You exclaim, 'Fling the weed to the 

flames,' think again 

Why the field is so barren. With all 

other men 
First love, though it perish from life, 

only goes 
Like tlie primrose that falls to make way 

for the rose. 
For a man, at least most men, may love 

on through life : 
Love in fame ; love in knowledge ; in 

work : earth is rife 

With labor, and therefore with love, for 

a man. 
If one love fails, another succeeds, and 

the plan 
Of man's life includes love in all objects ! 

But I ? 
All such loves from my life through its 

whole destiny 
Fate excluded. The love that I gave 

you, alas ! 
Was the sole love that life gave to me. 

Let that pass ! 
It perished, and all perished with it. 

Ambition ? 
Wealth left nothing to add to my social 

condition. 
Fame ? But fame in itself presupposes 

some great 
Field wherein to pursue and attain it. 

The State? 
I, to cringe to an upstart ? The Camp ? 

I, to draw 



LUCILE. 



121 



From its sheath the old sword of the 

Dukes of Luvois 
To defend usurpation ? Books, then ? 

Science, Art ? 
But, alas ! I was fashioned for action : 

my heart, 
Withered thing though it be, I should 

hardly compress 
'Twixt the leaves of a treatise on Statics : 

life's stress 
Needs scope, not contraction ! what 

rests ? to wear out 
At some dark northern court an existence, 

no doubt, 
In wretched and paltry intrigues for a 

cause 
As hopeless «s is my own life ! By the 

laws 
Of a fate I can neither control nor dis- 
pute, 
I am what I am ! " 



VIII. 
For a while she was mute. 
Then she answered, "We are our own 

fates. Our own deeds 
Are our doomsmen. Man's life was made 

not for men's creeds, 
But men's actions. And, Due de Luvois, 

I might say 
That all life attests, that ' the will makes 

the way.' 
Is the land of our birth less the land of 

our birth. 
Or its claim the less strong, or its cause 

the less worth 
Our upholding, because the white lily 

no more 
Is as sacred as all that it bloomed for of 

yore ? 
Yet be that as it may be ; I cannot per- 
chance 
Judge this matter. I am but a woman, 

and France 
Has for me simpler duties. Large hope, 

though, Eugene 
De Luvois, should be yours. There is 

purpose in pain. 
Otherwise it were devilish. I trust in 

my soul 
That the great master hand which sweeps 

over the whole 
Of this deep harp of life, if at moments 

it stretch 
To shrill tension some one wailing nerve, 

means to fetch 



Its response the truest, most stringent, 

and smart. 
Its pathos the purest, from out the wrung 

heart. 
Whose faculties, flaccid it may be, if less 
Sharply strung, sharply smitten, had 

failed to express 
Just the one note the great final harmony 

needs. 
And what best proves there 's life in a 

heart ? — that it bleeds ! 
Grant a cause to remove, grant an end 

to attain, 
Grant both to be just, and what mercy 

in pain ! 
Cease the sin with the sorrow ! See 

morning begin ! 
Pain must burn itself out if not fuelled 

by sin. 
There is hope in yon hill-tops, and love 

in yon light. 
Let hate and despondency die with the 

night ! " 

He was moved by her words. As some 

poor wretch confined 
In cells loud with meaningless laughter, 

whose mind 
Wandei-s trackless amidst its own ruins, 

may hear 
A voice heard long since, silenced many 

a year. 
And now, 'mid mad ravings recaptured 

again. 
Singing through the caged lattice a once 

well-known strain. 
Which brings back his boyhood upon it, 

until 
The mind's ruined crevices graciously fill 
With music and memory, and, as it 

were. 
The long-troubled spirit grows slowly 

aware 
Of the mockery round it, and shrinks 

from each thing 
It once sought, — tlie poor idiot who 

passed for a king, 
Hard by, with his squalid straw crown, 

now confessed 
A madman more painfully mad than the 

rest, — 
So the sound of her voice, as it there 

wandered o'er 
His echoing heart, seemed in part to re- 
store 
The forces of thought : he recaptured 

the whole 



122 



LUCILE. 



Of his life by the light which, in passing, 
her soul 

Eeflected on his : he appeared to awake 

From a dream, and perceived he had 
dreamed a mistake : 

His spirit was softened, yet troubled in 
him : 

He felt his lips falter, his eyesight grow 
dim, 

But he murmured . . . 

" Lucile, not for me that sun's light 

"Which reveals — not restores — the wild 
havoc of night. 

There are some creatures born for the 
night, not the day. 

Broken-hearted the nightingale hides in 
the spray. 

And the owl's moody mind in his own 
hollow tower 

Dwells muffled. Be darkness hencefor- 
ward my dower. 

Light, be sure, in that darkness there 
dwells, by which eyes 

Grown familiar with ruins may yet rec- 
ognize 

Enough desolation." 

IX. 

" The pride that claims here 
On earth to itself (howsoever severe 
To itself it may be) God's dread office 

and right 
Of punishing sin, is a sin in heaven's 

sight, 
And against heaven's service. 

"Eugene de Luvois, 
Leave the judgment to Him who alone 

knows the law. 
Surely no man can be his own judge, 

least of all 
His own doomsman." 

Her words seemed to fall 
With the weight of tears in them. 

He looked up, and saw 
That sad serene countenance, mournful 

as law 
And tender as pity, bowed o'er him : and 

heard 
In some thicket the matinal chirp of a 

bird. 

X. 

" Vulgar natures alone suffer vainly. 

" Eugene," 

She continued, "in life we have met 
once again. 

And once more life parts us. Yon day- 
spring for me 



Lifts the veil of a future in which it may 

be 
We shall meet nevennore. Grant, O 

grant to me yet 
The belief that it is not in vain we have 

met ! 
I plead for the future. A new horoscope 
I would cast : will you read it ? I plead 

for a hope : 
I plead for a memory ; yours, yours 

alone. 
To restore or to spare. Let the hope be 

your own. 
Be the memory mine. 

" Once of yore, when for man 
Faith yet lived, ere this age of the slug- 
gard began, 
Men, aroused to the knowledge of evil, 

fled far 
From the fading rose-gardens of sense, 

to the war 
With the Pagan, the cave in the desert, 

and sought 
Not repose, but employment in action 

or thought. 
Life's strong earnest, in all things ! 

think not of me. 
But yourself ! for I plead for your own 

destiny : 
1 plead for your life, with its duties un- 
done. 
With its claims unappeased, and its 

trophies unwon ; 
And in pleading for life's fair fulfilment, 

I plead 
For all that you miss, and for all that 

you need." 



Through the calm crystal air, faint and 

far, as she spoke, 
A clear, chilly chime from a church- 

turret broke ; 
And the sound of her voice, with the 

sound of the bell. 
On his ear, where he kneeled, softly, 

soothingly fell. 
All within him was wild and confused, 

as within 
A chamber deserted in some roadside 

inn, 
Where, passing, wild travellers paused, 

over-night. 
To quaff and carouse ; in each socket 

each light 
Is extinct ; crashed the glasses, and 

sci'awled is the wall 



LUCILE. 



123 



With wild ribald ballads ; serenelj'^ o'er 

all, 
For the tirst time perceived, where the 

dawn-light creeps faint 
Through the wrecks of that orgy, the 

face of a saint, 
Seen through some broken frame, ap- 
pears noting meanwhile 
The ruin all round with a sorrowful 

smile. 
And he gazed round. The curtains of 

Darkness half drawn 
Oped behind her ; and pure as the pure 

light of dawn, 
She stood, bathed in morning, and 

seemed to his eyes 
From their sight to be melting away in 

the slcies 
That expanded around her. 



There passed through his head 
A fancy, — a vision. That woman was 

dead 
He had loved long ago, — loved and lost ! 

dead to him, 
Dead to all the life left him ; but there, 

in the dim 
Dewy light of the dawn, stood a spirit ; 

't was hers ; 
And he said to the soul of Lucile de 

Nevers : 
"0 soul to its sources departing away ! 
Pray for mine, if one soul for another 

may pray. 
I to ask have no right, thou to give hast 

no power, 
One hope to my heart. But in this 

parting hour 
I name not my heart, and I speak not 

to thine. 
Answer, soul of Lucile, to this dark soul 

of mine, 
Does not soul owe to soul, what to heart 

heart denies, 
Hope, when hope is salvation ? Behold, 

in yon skies, 
This wild night is passing away while I 

speak : 
Lo, above us, the day-spring beginning 

to break ! 
Something wakens within me, and 

warms to the beam. 
Is it hope that awakens ? or do I but 

dream ? 
I know not. It may be, perchance, the 

first spark 



Of a new light within me to solace the 

dark 
Unto which I return ; or perchance it 

may be 
The last spaik of fires half extinguished 

in me. 
I know not. Thou goest thy way : I 

my own : 
For good or for evil, I know not. Alone 
This I know ; we are parting. I wished 

to say more, 
But no matter ! 't will pass. All be- 
tween us is o'er. 
Forget the wild words of to-night. 'T was 

the pain 
For long years hoarded up, that rushed 

from me again. 
I was unjust : forgive me. Spare now 

to reprove 
Other words, other deeds. It was mad- 
ness, not love. 
That you thwarted this night. What 

is done is now done. 
Death remains to avenge it, or life to 

atone. 
I was maddened, delirious ! I saw you 

return 
To him — not to me ; and I felt my 

heart bui-n 
With a fierce thirst for vengeance — and 

thus ... let it pass ! 
Long thoughts these, and so brief the 

moments, alas ! 
Thou goest thy way, and I mine. I 

suppose 
'T is to meet nevermore. Is it not so ? 

Who knows, 
Or who heeds, where the exile from 

Paradise flies ? 
Or what altars of his in the desert may 

rise ? 
Is it not so, Lucile ? Well, well ! Thus 

then we part 
Once again, soul from soul, as before 

heart from heart ! " 



And again, clearer far than the chime of 

the bell, 
That voice on his sense softly, soothingly 

fell. 
" Our two paths must part us, Eugene ; 

for my own 
Seems no more through that world in 

which henceforth alone 
You must work out (as now I beKeve 

that you will) 



124 



LUCILE. 



The hope which you speak of. That 

work 1 shall still 
(If I live) watch and welcome, and bless 

far away. 
Doubt not this. But mistake not the 

thought, if I say, 
That the grSat moi'al combat between 

human life 
And each human soul must be single. 

The strife 
None can share, though by all its results 

may be known. 
When the soul arms for battle, she goes 

forth alone. 
I say not, indeed, we shall meet never- 
more, 
For I know not. But meet, as we have 

met of yore, 
I know that we cannot. Perchance we 

may meet 
By the death-bed, the tomb, in the 

crowd, in the street. 
Or in solitude even, but never again 
Shall we meet from henceforth as we 

have met, Eugene. 
For we know not the way we are going, 

nor yet 
Where our two ways may meet, or may 

cross. Life hath s^t 
No landmarks before us. / But this, this 

alone, 
I will promise : whatever your path, or 

my own, 
If, for once in the conflict before you, it 

chance 
That the Dragon prevail, and with cleft 

shield, and lance 
Lost or shattered, borne down by the 

. stress of the war, 
You falter and hesitate, if from afar 
I, still watching (unknown to yourself, 

it may be) 
O'er the conflict to which I conjure ypu, 

should see 
That my presence could rescue, support 

you, or guide. 
In the hour of that need I shall be at 

your side, 
To warn, if you will, or incite, or con- 
trol ; 
And again, once again, we shall meet, 

soul to soul ! ",' 



The voice ceased. 



He uplifted his eyes. 

All alone 



He stood on the bare edge of dawn. 

She was gone, 
Like a star, when up bay after bay of 

the night. 
Ripples in, wave on wave, the broad 

ocean of light. 
And at once, in her place, was the Sun- 
rise ! It rose 
In its sumptuous splendor and solemn 

repose. 
The supreme revelation of light. Domes 

of gold, 
Eealms of rose, in the Orient ! And 

breathless, and bold. 
While the great gates of heaven rolled 

back one by one, 
The bright herald angel stood stern in 

the sun ! 
Thrice holy Eospheros ! Light's reign 



In the heaven, on the earth, in the 

heart of the man. 
The dawn on the mountains ! the dawn 

everywhere ! 
Light ! silence ! the fresh innovations 

of air ! 
earth, and ether ! A butterfly 

breeze 
Floated up, fluttered down, and poised 

blithe on the trees. 
Through the revelling woods, o'er the 

sharp-rippled stream. 
Up the vale slow uncoiling itself out of 

dream. 
Around tlie brown meadows, adown the 

hill-slope, 
The spirits of morning were whispering, 

" Hope ! " 

XV. 

He uplifted his eyes. In the place where 

she stood 
But a moment before, and where now 

rolled the flood 
Of the sunrise all golden, he seemed to 

behold. 
In the young light of sunrise, an image 

unfold 
Of his own youth, — its ardors, — its 

promise of fame, — 
Its ancestral ambition ; and France by 

the name 
Of his sires seemed to call him. There, 

hovered in light, 
That image aloft, o'er the shapeless and 

bright 
And Aurorean clouds, which themselves 

seemed to be 



LUCILE. 



125 



Brilliant fragments of that golden ivorld, 

wherein he 
Had once dwelt, a native ! 

There, rooted and bound 
To the earth, stood the man, gazing at 

it ! Around 
The rims of the sunrise it hovered and 

shone 
Transcendent, that type of a youth that 

was gone ; 
And he, — as the body may yearn for 

the soul, 
So he yearned to embody that image. 

His whole 
Heart arose to regain it. 

" And is it too late ?" 
No ! For time is a fiction, and limits 

not ffrte. 
Thought alone is eternal. Time thralls 

it in vain. 
Jor the thought that springs upward 

and yearns to regain 
The pure source of spirit, there is no 

Too LATE. 

As the stream to its first mountain 

levels, elate 
In the fountain arises, the spirit in him 
Arose to that image. The image waned 

dim 
Into heaven ; and heavenward with it, 

to melt 
As it melted, in day's broad expansion, 

he felt 
With a thrill, sweet and strange, and 

intense, — awed, amazed, — 
Something soar and ascend in his soul, 

as he gazed. 



CANTO VI. 



Man is bom on a battle-field. Eound 

him, to rend 
Or resist, the dread Powers he displaces 

attend, 
By the cradle which Nature, amidst the 

stem shocks 
That have shattered creation, and shapen 

it, rocks. 
He leaps with a wail into being ; and lo ! 
His own mother, fierce Nature herself, 

is his foe. • 
Her whirlwinds are roused into wrath 

o'er his head : 



'Neath his feet roll her earthquakes : her 
solitudes spread 

To daunt him : her forces dispute his 
command : 

Her snows fall to freeze him ; her suns 
burn to brand : 

Her seas yawn to engulf him : her rocks 
rise to crush : 

And the lion and leopard, allied, lurk to 
rush 

On their startled invader. 

In lone Malabar, 

Where the infinite forest spreads breath- 
less and far, 

'Mid the cruel of eye and the stealthy 
of claw 

(Striped and spotted destroyers !) he 
sees, pale with awe, 

On the menacing edge of a fiery sky 

Grim Doorga, blue-limbed and red- 
handed, go by. 

And the first thing he worships is 
Terror. 

Anon, 

Still impelled by necessity hungrily on, 

He conquers the realms of his own self- 
reliance, 

And the last cry of fear wakes the first 
of defiance. 

From the serpent he crushes its poison- 
ous soul : 

Smitten down in his path see the dead 
lion roll ! 

On toward Heaven the son of Alcmena 
strides high on 

The heads of the Hydra, the spoils of the 
lion : 

And man, conquering Terror, is wor- 
shipped by man. 

A camp has this world been since first 

it began ! 
From his tents sweeps the roving Ara- 

• bian ; at peace, 
A mere wandering shepherd that follows 

the fleece ; 
But, warring his way through a world's 

destinies, 
Lo, from Delhi, from Bagdadt, from 

Cordova, rise 
Domes of empiry, dowered with science 

and art, ' 

Schools, libraries, forams, the palace, 

the mart ! 

New realms to man's soul have been 
conquered. But those, 



126 



LUCILE. 



Forthwith they are peopled for man by 

new foes ! 
The stars keep their secrets, the earth 

hides her own, 
And bold must the man be that braves 

the Unknown ! 
Not a truth has to art or to science been 

given. 
But brows have ached for it, and souls 

toiled and striven ; 
And many have striven, and many have 

failed. 
And many died, slain by the truth they 

assailed. 
But when Man hath tamed Nature, 

asserted his place 
And dominion, behold ! he is brought 

face to face 
With a new foe, — himself ! 

Nor may man on his shield 
Ever rest, for his foe is forever afield,' 
Danger ever at hand, till the armed 

Archangel 
Sound o'er him the trump of earth's 

final evangel. 



Silence straightway, stern Muse, the 

soft cymbals of pleasure, 
Be all bronzen these numbers, and mar- 
tial the measure ! 
Breathe, sonorously breathe, o'er the 

spirit in me 
One strain, sad and stern, of that deep 

Epopee 
Which thou, from thef fashionless cloud 

of far time, 
Chantest lonely, when Victory, pale, 

and sublime 
In the light of the aureole over her 

head. 
Hears, and heeds not the wound in her 

heart fresh and red. 
Blown wide by the blare of the clarion, 

unfold 
The shrill clanging curtains of war ! 

And behold 
A vision ! 

The antique Heraclean seats ; 
And the long Black Sea billow that 

once bore those fleets. 
Which said to the winds, "Be ye, too, 

Genoese ! " 
And the red angry sands of the chafed 

Chersonese ; 
And the two foes of man, War and 

Winter, allied 



Round the Armies of England and 

France, side by side 
Enduring and dying (Gaul and Briton 

abreast !) 
Where the towers of the North fret the 

skies of the East. 



Since that sunrise, which rose through 

the calm linden stems 
O'er Lucile and Eugene, in the garden 

at Ems, 
Through twenty-five seasons encircling 

the sun. 
This planet of ours on its pathway hath 

gone, 
And the fates that I sing of have flowed 

with tlie fates 
Of a world, in the red wake of war, 

round the gates 
Of that doomed and heroical city, in 

which 
(Fire crowning the rampart, blood bath- 
ing the ditch !) 
At bay, fights the Russian as some 

hunted bear, 
Whom the huntsmen have hemmed 

round at last in his lair. 



A fanged, arid plain, sapped with under- 
ground fire. 

Soaked with snow, torn with shot, 
mashed to one gory mire ! 

There Fate's iron scale hangs in horrid 
suspense. 

While those two famished ogres, — the 
Siege, the Defence, 

Face to face, through a vapor frore, dis- 
mal, and dun. 

Glare, scenting the breath of each other. 
The one 

Double-bodied, two-headed, — by sepa- 
rate ways 

Winding, serpent- wise, nearer ; the other, 
each day's 

Sullen toil adding size to, — concentrat- 
ed, solid. 

Indefatigable, — the brass-fronted, em- 
bodied, 

And audible avros gone sombrely forth 

To the world from that Autocrat Will, 
of the north ! 



In the dawn of a moody October, a 
pale 



LUCILE. 



127 



Ghostly motionless vapor began to pre- 
vail 

Over city and camp ; like the garment 
of death 

"Which (is formed by) the face it conceals. 
'T was the breath 

War, yet drowsily yawning, began to 
suspire ; 

Wherethrough, here and there, flashed 
an eye of red fire, 

And closed, from some rampart begin- 
ning to bellow 

Hoarse challenge ; replied to anon, 
through the yellow 

And sulphurous twilight : till day reeled 
and rocked. 

And roarec^into dark. Then the mid- 
night was mocked 

With fierce apparitions. Einged round 
by a rain 

Of red fire, and of iron, the murtherous 
plain 

Flared with fitful combustion ; where 
fitfully fell 

Afar off the fatal, disgorged scharpenelle, 

And fired the horizon, and singed the 
coiled gloom 

With wings of swift flame round that 
City of Doom. 

VI. 

So the day — so the night ! So by 

night, so by day, 
With stern patient pathos, while time 

wears away. 
In the trench flooded through, in the 

wind where it wails. 
In the snow M'here it falls, in the fire 

where it hails 
Shot and shell — link by link, out of 

hardship and pain. 
Toil, sickness, endurance, is forged the 

bronze chain 
Of those terrible siege-lines ! 

No change to that toil 
Save the mine's sudden leap from the 

treacherous soil. 
Save the midnight attack, save the 

groans of the maimed, 
And Death's daily obolus due, whether 

claimed 
By man or by nature. 



Time passes. The dumb, 
Bitter, snow-bound, and sullen Novem- 
ber is come. 



And its snows have been bathed in the 

blood of the brave : 
And many a young heart has glutted the 

grave : 
And on Inkerman yet the wild bramble 

is gory, 
And those bleak heights henceforth shall 

be famous in story. 



The moon, swathed in storm, has long 

set : through the camp 
No sound save the sentinel's slow sullen 

tramp. 
The distant explosion, the wild sleety 

wind, 
That seems searching for something it 

never can find. 
The midnight is turning : the lamp is 

nigh spent : 
And, wounded and lone, in a desolate 

tent 
Lies a young British soldier whose 

sword . . . 

In this place, 
However, my Muse is compelled to re- 

trace 
Her precipitous steps and revert to the 

past. 
The shock which had suddenly shat- 
tered at last 
Alfred Vargrave's fantastical holiday 

nature. 
Had sharply drawn forth to his full size 

and stature 
The real man, concealed till that mo- 
ment beneath 
All he yet had appeared. . From the 

gay broidered sheath 
Which a man in his wrath flings aside, 

even so 
Leaps the keen trenchant steel sum- 
moned forth by a blow. 
And thus loss of fortune gave value to 

life. 
The wife gained a husband, the husband 

a wife. 
In that home which, though humbled 

and narrowed by fate. 
Was enlarged and ennobled by love. 

Low their state, 
But large their possessions. 

Sir Ridley, forgiven 
By those he unwittingly brought nearer 

heaven 
By one fraudulent act, than through aU 

his sleek speech 



128 



LUCILE. 



The hypocrite brought his own soul, 
safe from reach 

Of the law, died abroad. 

Cousin John, heart and hand, 

Purse and person, henceforth (honest 
man !) took his stand 

By Matilda and Alfred ; guest, guar- 
dian, and friend 

Of the home he both shared and assured, 
to the end. 

With his large lively love. Alfred Var- 
grave meanwhile 

Faced the world's frown, consoled by 
his wife's faithful smile. 

Late in life he began life in earnest ; 
and still. 

With the tranquil exertion of resolute will. 

Through long, and laborious, and diffi- 
cult days. 

Out of manifold failure, by wearisome 
ways, 

Worked his way through the world ; till 
at last he began 

(Reconciled to the work which mankind 
claims from man). 

After years of unwitnessed, unwearied 
endeavor. 

Years impassioned yet patient, to realize 
ever 

More clear on the broad stream of cur- 
rent opinion 

The reflex of powers in himself, — that 
dominion 

Which the life of one man, if his life be 
a truth, 

May assert o'er the life of mankind. 
Thus, his youth 

In his manhood renewed, fame and for- 
tune he won 

Working only for home, love, and duty. 
One son 

Matilda had borne him ; but scarce had 
the boy. 

With all Eton yet fresh in his full heart's 
frank joy, 

The darling of young soldier comrades, 
just glanced 

Down the glad dawn of manhood at 
life, when it chanced 

That a blight sharp and sudden was 
breathed o'er the bloom 

Of his joyous and generous years, and 
the gloom 

Of a grief premature on their fair prom- 
ise fell : 

No light cloud like those which, for 
June to dispel, 



Captious April engenders ; but deep as 

his own 
Deep nature. Meanwhile, ere I fuUy 

make known 
The cause of this sorrow, I track the 

event. 
When first a wild war-note through 

England was sent. 
He, transferring without either token 

or word. 
To friend, parent, or comrade, a yet vir- 
gin sword, 
From a holiday troop, to one bound for 

the war. 
Had marched forth, with eyes that saw 

death in the star 
Whence others sought glory. Thus, 

fighting, he fell 
On the red field of Inkerman ; found, 

who can tell 
By what miracle, breathing, though 

shattered, and borne 
To the rear by his comrades, pierced, 

bleeding, and torn. 
Where for long days and nights, with 

the wound in his side. 
He lay, dark. 



But a wound deeper far, undescried, 
In the J'oung heart was rankling ; for 

there, of a truth, 
In the first earnest faith of a pure pen- 
sive youth, 
A love large as life, deep and changeless 

as death. 
Lay ensheathed : and that love, ever 

fretting its sheath. 
The frail scabbard of life pierced and 

wore thi'ough and through. 
There are loves in man's life for which 

time can renew 
All that time may destroy. Lives there 

are, though, in love. 
Which cling to one faith, and die with 

it ; nor move, 
Though earthquakes may shatter the 

shrine. 

Whence or how 
Love laid claim to this young life, it 

matters not now. 



X, 

0, is it a phantom ? a dream of the night ? 

A vision which fever hath fashioned to 

sight ? . . 



LUCILE. 



129 



The wind wailing ever, with motion un- 
certain, 

Sways sighingly there the drenched tent's 
tattei'ed curtain. 

To and fro, up and down. 

But it is not the wind 

That is lifting it now : and it is not the 
mind 

That hath moulded that vision. 

A pale woman enters, 

As wan as the lamp's waning light, 
which concentres 

Its dull glare upon her. "With eyes 
dim and dimmer 

There, all in a slumberous and shadowy 
glimmer. 

The sufferewees that still form floating on, 

And feels faintly aware that he is not 
alone. 

She is flitting before him. She pauses. 
She stands 

By his bedside, all silent. She lays her 
white hands - 

On the brow of the boy. A light finger 
is pressing 

Softly, softly the sore wounds : the hot 
blood-stained dressing 

Slips from them. A comforting quie- 
tude steals 

Through the racked weary frame : and, 
throughout it, he feels 

The slow sense of a merciful, mild neigh- 
borhood. 

Something smooths the tossed pillow. 
Beneath a gray hood 

Of rough serge, two intense tender eyes 
are bent o'er him, 

And thrill through and through him. 
The sweet form before him. 

It is surely Death's angel Life's last vigil 
keeping ! 

A soft voice says ..." Sleep ! " 

And he sleeps : he is sleeping. 



He waked before dawn. Still the vision 

is there : 
Still that pale woman moves not. A 

ministering care 
Meanwhile has been silently changing 

and cheering 
The aspect of all things around him. 

Revering 
Some power unknown and benignant, 

he blessed 
In silence the sense of salvation. And 

rest 

9 



Having loosened the mind's tangled 

meshes, he faintly 
Sighed ..." Say what thou art, blessed 

dream of a saintly 
And ministering spirit ! " 

A whisper serene 
Slid, softer than silence ..." The Sceur 

Seraphine, 
A poor Sister of Charity. Shun to in- 
quire 
Aught further, young soldier. The son 

of thy sire. 
For the sake of that sire, I reclaim from 

the grave. 
Thou didst not shun death : shun not 

life. 'T is more brave 
To live, than to die. Sleep ! " 

He sleeps : he is sleeping. 



He wakened again, when the dawn was 

just steeping 
The skies with chill splendor. And 

there, never flitting. 
Never flitting, that vision of mercy was 

sitting. 
As the dawn to the darkness, so life 

seemed returning 
Slowly, feebly within him. The night- 
lamp, yet burning. 
Made ghastly the glimmering daybreak. 
He said, 
" If thou be of the living,^ and not of 

the dead. 
Sweet minister, pour out yet further the 

healing 
Of that balmy voice ; if it may be, re- 
vealing 
Thy mission of mercy ! whence art thou ? " 

" son 
Of Matilda and Alfred, it matters not ! 

One 
Who is not of the living nor yet of the 

dead : 
To thee, and to others, alive yet "... 

she said . . . 
"So long as there liveth the poor gift 

in me 
Of this ministration ; to them, and to 

thee, 
Dead in all things beside. A French 

Nun, whose vocation 
Is now by this bedside. A nun hath no 

nation. 
"Wherever man sufiers, or woman may 

soothe, 
There her land ! there her kindred 1 " 



130 



LUCILE. 



Slie bent down to smooth 
The hot pillow ; and added . . . "Yet 

more than another 
Is thy life dear to me. For thy father, 

thy mother, 
I knew them, — I know them." 

" can it be? you ! 
My dearest dear father ! my mother ! 

you knew, 
You know them ? " 

She bowed, half averting, her head 
In silence. 

He brokenly, timidly said, 
•' Do they know I am thus ? " 

" Hush ! " . . . she smiled, as she drew 
From her bosoi^ two letters : and — can 

it be true ? 
That beloved and familiar writing ! 

He burst 
Into tears ..." My poor mother — my 

father ! the worst 
Will have reached them ! " 

"No, no!" she exclaimed with a 
smile, 
" They know you are living ; they know 

that meanwhile 
I am watching beside you. Young sol- 
dier, weep not ! " 
But still on the nun's nursing bosom, 

the hot 
Fevered brow of the boy weeping wildly 

is pressed. 
There, at last, the young heart sobs it- 
self into rest : 
And he hears, as it were between smil- 
ing and weeping. 
The calm voice say ..." Sleep ! " 

And he sleeps, he is sleeping. 



And day followed day. And, as wave 

follows wave. 
With the tide, day by day, life, reissuing, 

drave 
Through that young hardy frame novel 

currents of health. 
Yet some strange obstruction, which 

life's self by stealth 
Seemed to cherish, impeded life's pro- 
gress. And still 
A feebleness, less of the frame than the 

will. 
Clung about the sick man : hid and 

harbored within 
The sad hollow eyes : pinched the cheek 

pale and thin : 
And clothed the wan fingers with languor. 



And there, 
Day by day, night by night, unremit- 
ting in care. 
Unwearied in watching, so cheerful of 

mien. 
And so gentle of hand, sat the Sceur 
Seraphine ! 



A strange woman truly ! not young ; 

yet her face. 
Wan and worn as it was, bore about it 

the trace 
Of a beauty which time could not ruin. 

For the whole 
Quiet cheekj youth's lost bloom left 

transparent, the soul 
Seemed to fill with its own light, like 

some sunny fountain 
Everlastingly fed from far off in the 

mountain 
That poiirs, in a garden deserted, its 

streams, 
And all the more lovely for loneliness 

seems. 
So that, watching that face, you would 

scarce pause to guess 
The years which its calm careworn lines 

might express, 
Feeling only what suffering with these 

must have past 
To have perfected there so much sweet- 
ness at la-st. 



Thus, one bronzen evening, when day 

had put out 
His brief thrifty fires, and the wind was 

about. 
The nun, watchful still by the boy, on 

his own 
Laid a firm qiriet hand, and the deep 

tender tone 
Of her voice moved the silence. 

She said ..." I have healed 
These wounds of the body. Why hast 

thou concealed. 
Young soldier, that yet open wound in 

the heart ? 
Wilt thou trust no hand near it ? " 

He winced, with a start, 
As of one that is suddenly touched on 

the spot 
From which every nerve derives suffering. 
"What! 
Lies my heart, then, so bare ? " he 

moaned bitterly. 



LUCILE. 



131 



"Nay," 

With compassionate accents she hastened 
to say, 

"Do you think that these eyes are with 
sorrow, young man, 

So all unfamiliar, indeed, as to scan 

Her features, yet know them not ? 

" 0, was it spoken, 

' Go ye forth, heal the sick, lift the low, 
bind the broken ! ' 

or the body alone ? Is our mission, 
then, done. 

When we leave the bruised hearts, if we 
bind the bruised bone ? 

Nay, is not the mission of mercy two- 
fold ? 

Whence tt^^ofold, perchance, are the 
powers, that we hold 

To fulfil it, of Heaven ! For Heaven 
doth still 

To us. Sisters, it may be, who seek it, 
send skill 

Won from long intercourse with afflic- 
tion, and art 

Helped of Heaven, to bind up the 
broken of heart. 

Trust to me ! " (His two feeble hands 
in her own 

She drew gently.) "Trust to me ! " (she 
said, with soft tone): 

"I am not so dead in remembrance to 
all 

I have died to in this world, but what I 
recall 

Enough of its sorrow, enough of its 
trial, 

To grieve for both, —save from both 
haply ! The dial 

Receives many shades, and each points 
to the sun. 

The shadows are many, the sunlight is 
r one. 

I Life's sorrows still fluctuate : God's love 
V does not. 

And His love is unchanged, when it 
changes our lot. 

Looking up to this light, which is com- 
mon to all. 

And down to these shadows, on each 
side, that fall 

In time's silent circle, so various for each, 

Is it nothing to know that they never 
can reach 

So far, but what light lies beyond them 
forever ? 

Trust to me ! 0, if in this hour I en- 
deavor 



To trace the shade creeping across the 

young life 
Which, in prayer till this hour, I have 

watched through its strife 
With the shadow of death, 't is with 

this faith alone. 
That, in tracing the shade, I shall find 

out the sun. 
Tnist to me ! " 

She paused : he was weeping. Small 

need 
Of added appeal, or entreaty, indeed, 
Had those gentle accents to win from 

his pale 
And parched, tremblinglips, as it rose, 

the brief tale ^ 
Of a life's early sorrow. The story is 

old, 
And in words few as may be shall 

straightway be told. 



A few years ago, ere the fair form of 

Peace 
Was driven from Europe, a young girl 

— the niece 
Of a French noble,, leaving an old Nor- 
man pile 
By the wild northern seas, came to dwell 

for a while 
With a lady allied to her race, — an old 

dame 
Of a threefold legitimate virtue, and 

name. 
In the Faubourg Saint Germain. 

Upon that fair child. 
From childhood, nor father nor mother 

had smiled. 
One uncle their place in her life had 

supplied. 
And their place in her heart : she had 

grown at his side. 
And under his roof-tree, and in his re- 
gard, 
From childhood to girlhood. 

This fair orphan ward 
Seemed the sole human creature that 

lived in the heart 
Of that stern rigid man, or whose smile 

could impart 
One ray of response to the eyes which, 

above 
Her fair infant forehead, looked down 

with a love 
That seemed almost stem, so intense 

was its chill 



132 



LUCILE. 



Lofty stillness, like sunlight on some 

lonely hill 
Which is colder and stiller than sunlight 

elsewhere. 

Grass grew in the court-yard ; the cham- 
bers were bare 

In that ancient mansion ; when first the 
stern tread 

Of its owner awakened their echoes long 
dead : 

Bringing with him this infant (the child 
of a brother), 

Whom, dying, the hands of a desolate 
mother 

Had placed on his bosom. 'T was said 
— right or wrong — 

That, in the lone mansion, left tenant- 
less long. 

To which, as a stranger, its lord now 
returned. 

In years yet recalled, through loud mid- 
nights had burned 

The light of wild orgies. Be that false 
or true. 

Slow and sad was the footstep which 
now wandered through 

Those desolate chambers ; and calm and 
severe 

Was the life of their inmate. 

Men now saw appear 

Every morn at the mass that firm sor- 
rowful face. 

Which seemed to lock up in a cold iron 
case 

Tears hardened to crystal. Yet harsh 
if he were. 

His severity seemed to be trebly severe 

In the rule of his own rigid life, which, 
at least, 

Was benignant to others. The poor 
parish priest, 

Who lived on his largess, his piety 
praised. 

The peasant was fed, and the chapel was 
raised. 

And the cottage was built, by his liberal 
hand. 

Yet he seemed in the midst of his good 
deeds to stand 

A lone, and unloved, and unlovable man. 

There appeared some inscrutable flaw in 
the plan 

Of his life, that love failed to pass over. 
That child 

Alone did not fear him, nor shrink from 
him; smiled 



To his frown, and dispelled it. 

The sweet .sportive elf 
Seemed the type of some joy lost, and 

missed, in himself. 
Ever welcome he suffered her glad face 

to glide 
In on hours when to others his door was 

denied : 
And many a time with a mute moody 

look 
He would watch her at prattle and play, 

like a brook 
Whose babble disturbs not the quietest 

spot, 
But soothes us because we need answer 

it not. 

But few years had passed o'er that child- 
hood before 

A change came among them. A letter, 
which bore 

Sudden consequence with it, one morn- 
ing was placed 

In the hands of the lord of the chateau. 
He paced 

To and fro in his chamber a whole night 
alone 

After reading that letter. At dawn he 
was gone. 

Weeks passed. When he came back 
again he returned 

With a tall ancient dame, from whose 
lips the child learned 

That they were of the same race and 
name. With a face 

Sad and anxious, to this withered stock 
of th§ race 

He confided the orphan, and left them 
alone 

In the old lonely house. 

In a few days 't was known. 

To the angry surprise of half Paris, that 
one 

Of the chiefs of that party which, still 
clinging on 

To the banner that bears the white lilies 
of France, 

Will fight 'neath no other, nor yet for 
the chance 

Of restoring their own, had renounced 
the watchword 

And the creed of his youth in unsheath- 
ing his sword 

For a Fatherland fathered no more (such 
is fate !) 

By legitimate parents. 

And meanwhile, elate 



LUCILE. 



133 



And in no wise disturbed by wbat Paris 
might say, 

The new soldier thus wrote to a friend 
far away : — 

" To the life of inaction farewell ! After 
all, 

Creeds the oldest may crumble, and 
dynasties fall, 

But the sole grand Legitimacy will en- 
dure, 

In whatever makes death noble, life 
strong and pure. 

Freedom ! action ! . . . the desert to 
breathe in, — the lance 

Of the Arab to follow ! I go ! Five la 
France ! " 
» 

Few and rare were the meetings hence- 
forth, as years fled, 

'Twixt the child and the soldier. The 
two women led 

Lone lives in the lone house. Mean- 
while the child grew 

Into girlhood ; and, like a sunbeam, 
sliding through 

Her green quiet years, changed by gen- 
tle degrees 

To the loveliest vision of youth a youth 
sees 

In his loveliest fancies : as pure as a 
pearl, 

And as perfect : a noble and innocent 
gii-1, 

With eighteen sweet summers dissolved 
in the light 

Of her lovely and lovable eyes, soft and 
bright ! 

Then her guardian wrote to the dame, 
..." Let Constance 

Go with you to Paris. I trust that in 
France 

I may be ere the close of the year. I 
confide 

My life's treasure to you. Let her see, 
at your side, 

The world which we live in. " 

To Paris then came 

Constance to abide with that old stately 
dame 

In that old stately Faubourg. 

The young Englishman 

Thus met her. 'T was there their ac- 
quaintance began. 

There it closed. That old miracle — 
Love-at-first-sight — 

Needs no explanations. The heart reads 
aright 



Its destiny sometimes. His love neither 
chidden 

Nor checked, the young soldier was gra- 
ciously bidden 

An habitual guest to that house by the 
dame. 

His own candid graces, the world-hon- 
ored name 

Of his father (in him not dishonored) 
were both 

Fair titles to favor. His love, nothing 
loath. 

The old lady observed, was returned by 
Constance. 

And as the child's uncle his absence from 
France 

Yet prolonged, she (thus easing long 
self-gratulation) 

Wrote to him a lengthened and moving 
narration 

Of the graces and gifts of the young 
English wooer : 

His father's fair fame ; the boy's defer- 
ence to her ; 

His love for Constance, — unaffected, 
sincere ; 

And the girl's love for him, read by her 
in those clear 

Limpid eyes ; then the pleasure with 
which she awaited 

Her cousin's approval of all she had 
stated. 

At length from that cousin an answer 
there came. 

Brief, stern ; such as stunned and as- 
tonished the dame. 

"Let Constance leave Paris with you 

on the day 
You receive this. Until my return she 

may stay 
At her convent awhile. If my niece 

wishes ever 
To behold me again, understand, she 

will never 
Wed that man. 

" You have broken faith with me. 

Farewell ! " 

No appeal from that sentence. 

It needs not to tell 
The tears of Constance, nor the grief of 

her lover : 
The dream they had laid out their lives 

in was over. 



134 



LUCILE. 



Bravely strove the young soldier to look 
in the face 

Of a life, where invisible hands seemed 
to trace 

O'er the threshold, these words . . . 
" Hope no more ! " 

Unre turned 

Had his love been, the strong manful 
heart would have spurned 

That weakness which suflers a woman to 
lie 

At the roots of man's life, like a canker, 
and diy 

And wither the sap of life's purpose. 
But there 

Lay the bitterer part of the pain ! Could 
he dare 

To forget he was loved ? that he grieved 
not alone ? 

Recording a love that drew sorrow upon 

The woman he loved, for himself dare 
he seek 

Surcease to that sorrow, which thus 
held him weak. 

Beat him down, and destroyed him ? 

News reached him indeed, 

Through a comrade, who brought him 
a letter to read 

From the dame who had care of Con- 
stance (it was one 

To whom, when at Paris, the boy had 
been known, 

A Frenchman, and friend of the Fau- 
bourg), which said 

That Constance, although never a mur- 
mur betrayed 

"What she suffered, in silence grew paler 
each day, 

And seemed visibly drooping and dying 
away. 

It was then he sought death. 

XVII. 

- Thus the tale ends. 'T was told 
With such broken, passionate words, as 

unfold 
In glimpses alone, a coiled grief. Through 

each pause 
Of its fitful recital, in raw gusty flaws. 
The rain shook the canvas, unheeded ; 

aloof, 
And unheeded, the night-wind around 

the tent-roof 
At intervals wirbled. And when all 

was said. 
The sick man, exhausted, drooped back- 
ward his head, 



And fell into a feverish slumber. 

Long while 
Sat the Soeur Seraphine, in deep thought. 

The still smile 
That was wont, angel-wise, to inhabit 

her face 
And make it like heaven, was fled from 

its place 
In her eyes, on her lips ; and a deep 

sadness there 
Seemed to darken the lines of long sor- 
row and care. 
As low to herself she sighed . . . 

"Hath it, Eugfene, 
Been so long, then, the struggle ? . . . 

and yet, all in vain ! 
Nay, not all in vain ! Shall the world 

gain a man. 
And yet Heaven lose a soul ? Have I 

done all I can ? 
Soul to soul, did he say ? Soul to soul, 

be it so ! 
And then, — soul of mine, whither ? 

whither ? " 

XVIII. 

Large, slow. 
Silent tears in those deep eyes ascended, 

and fell. 
^^ Here, at least, I have failed not "... 

she mused ..." this is well ! " 
She drew from her bosom two letters. 

In one, 
A mother's heart, wild with alarm for 

her son. 
Breathed bitterly forth its despairing 

appeal. 
"The pledge of a love owed to thee, 

Lucile ! , 
The hope of a home saved by thee, — 

of a heart 
"Which hath never since then (thrice en- 
deared as thou art !) 
Ceased to bless thee, to pray for thee, 

save ! . . . save my son ! 
And if not" . . . the letter went brokenly 

on, 
" Heaven help us ! " 

Then followed, from Alfred, a few 
Blotted heart-broken pages. He mourn- 
fully drew, 
"With pathos, the picture of that earnest 

youth, g 

So unlike his own : how in beauty and ^ 

truth 
He had nurtured that nature, so simple 

and brave ! ,; 



LUCILK 



135 



And how he had striven his son's youth 

to save 
From the errors so sadly redeemed in 

his own, 
And so deeply repented : how thus, in 

that son, 
In whose youth he had garnered his age, 

he had seemed 
To be blessed by a pledge that the past 

was redeemed, 
And forgiven. He bitterly went on to 

speak 
Of the boy's baffled love ; in which fate 

seemed to break 
Unawares on his dreams with retributive 

pain, 
And the ghosts of the past rose to scourge 

baclif again 
The hopes of the future. To sue for 

consent 
Pride forbade : and the hope his old foe 

might relent 
Experience rejected . . . ".My life for 

the boy's ! " 
(He exclaimed); " for I die with my son, 

if he dies ! 
Lucile ! Heaven bless you for all you 

have done ! 
Save him, save him, Lucile ! save my 

son ! save my son ! " 



*' Ay ! " murmured the Sceur Seraphine 
..." heart to heart ! 

There, at least, I have failed not ! Ful- 
filled is my part ? 

Accomplished my mission ? One act 
crowns the whole. 

Do I linger ? Nay, be it so, then ! . . . 
Soul to soul ! " 

She knelt down, and prayed. Still the 
boy slumbered on. 

Dawn broke. The pale nun from the 
bedside was gone. 



Meanwhile, 'mid his aides-de-camp, bus- 
ily bent 

O'er the daily reports, in his well-ordered 
tent 

There sits a French General, — bronzed 
by the sun 

And seared by the sands of Algeria. 
One 

Who forth from the wars of the wild 
Kabylee 



Had strangely and rapidly risen to be 
The idol, the darling, the dream, and 

the star 
Of the younger French chivalry : daring 

in wai". 
And wary in council. He entered, in- 
deed. 
Late in life (and discarding his Bour- 

bonite creed) 
The Army of France : and had risen, in 

part. 
From a singular aptitude proved for the 

art 
Of that wild desert warfare of ambush, 

surprise, 
And stratagem, which to the French 

camp supplies 
Its subtlest intelligence ; partly from 

chance ; 
Partly, too, from a name and position 

which France 
Was proud to put forward ; but mainly, 

in fact. 
From the prudence to plan, and the 

daring to act. 
In frequent emergencies startlingly 

shown, 
To the rank which he now held, — in- 
trepidly won 
With many a wound, trenched in many 

a scar. 
From fierce Milianah and Sidi-Sakhdar. 



All within, and without, that warm tent 
seems to bear 

Smiling token of provident order and 
care. 

All about, a well-fed, well-clad soldiery 
stands 

In groups round the music of mirth- 
breathing bands. 

In and out of the tent, all day long, to 
and fro, 

The messengers come, and the messen- 
gers go. 

Upon missions of mercy, or errands of 
toil: 

To report how the sapper contends with 
the soil 

In the terrible trench, how the sick man 
is faring 

In the hospital tent : and, combining, 
comparing, 

Constructing, withia moves the brain of 
one man. 

Moving all. 



136 



LUCILE. 



He is bending his brow o'er some plan 

For the hospital service, wise, skilful, 
humane. 

The officer standing beside him is 
fain 

To refer to the angel solicitous cares 

Of the Sisters of Charity : one he de- 
clares 

To be known through the camp as a 
seraph of grace : 

He has seen, all have seen her indeed, 
in each place 

"Where suffering is seen, silent, active, — 
the Soeur ... 

Soeur . . . how do they call her ? 

"Ay, truly, of her 

I have heard much," the General, mus- 
ing, replies ; 

"And we owe her already (unless rumor 
lies) 

The lives of not few of our bravest. You 
mean . . . 

Ay, how do they call her ? . . . the Soeur 
— Seraphine, 

(Is it not so ?) I rarely forget names 
once heard." 

"Yes; the Soeur Seraphine. Her I 

meant." 

"On mj' word, 
I have much wished to see her, I fancy 

I trace. 
In some facts traced to her, something 

more than the grace 
Of an angel : I mean an acute human 

mind, 
Ingenious, constructive, intelligent. Find 
And, if possible, let her come to me. 

We shall, 
I think, aid each other. 

" Oui, mon Geniralj 
I believe she has lately obtained the 

permission 
To tend some sick man in the Second 

Division 
Of our Ally : they say a relation. 

"Ay, so? 
A relation ? " 

" 'T is said so." 

" The name do you know ?" 
" Non, "mon General." 

"While they spoke yet, there went 
A murmur and stir round the door of 

the tent. 
" A Sister of Charity craves, in a case 
Of urgent and serious importance, the 

gi-ace 



Of brief private speech with the Genera] 

there. 
"Will the General speak with her ? " 

"Bid her declare 
Her mission." 

" She will not. She craves to be seen 
And be heard." 

"Well, her name then ? " 

"The Soeur Seraphine." 
"Clear the tent. She may enter," 



The tent has been cleared. 
The chieftain stroked moodily somewhat 

his beard, 
A sable long silvered : and pressed down 

his brow 
On his hand, heavy veined. All his 

countenance, now 
Unwitnessed, at once fell dejected, and 

dreary. 
As a curtain let fall by a hand that 'a 

grown weary, 
Into puckers and folds. From his lips, 

unrepressed. 
Steals th' impatient quick sigh, which 

reveals in man's breast 
A conflict concealed, an experience at 

strife 
With itself, — the vexed heart's passing 

protest on life. 
He turned to his papers. He heard the 

light tread 
Of a faint foot behind him : and, lifting 

his head. 
Said, " Sit, Holy Sister ! your worth is 

well known 
To the hearts of our soldiers ; nor less 

to my own, 
I have much wished to see you. I owe 

you some thanks : 
In the name of all those you have saved 

to our ranks 
I record them. Sit ! Now then, your 

mission ? " 

The nun 
Paused silent. The General eyed her 

anon 
More keenly. His aspect grew troubled, 

A change 
Darkened over his features. He muttered 

, , , " Strange ! strange ! 
Any face should so strongly remind me 

of her ! 
Fool ! again the delirium, the dream f 

does it stir? 



LUCILE. 



137 




Does it move as of old ? Psha ! 

"Sit, Sister ! I wait 

Your answer, my time halts but hur- 
riedly. State 

The cause why you seek me ? " 

" The cause ? ay, the cause ! " 

She vaguely repeated. Then, after a 
pause, — 

As one who, awaked unawares, would 
put back 



The sleep that forever returns in the 
track 

Of dreams which, though scared and 
dispersed, not the less 

Settle back to faint eyelids that yield 
'neath their stress. 

Like doves to a penthouse, — a move- 
ment she made. 

Less toward him than away from herself ; 
drooped her head 



138 



LUCILE. 



And folded her hands on her bosom : 

long, spare, 
Fatigued, mournful hands ! Not a 

stream of stray hair 
Escaped the pale bands ; scarce more 

pale than the face 
"Which they bound and locked up in a 

rigid white case. 
She fixed her eyes on him. There crept 

a vague awe 
O'er his sense, such as ghosts cast. 

"Eugene de Luvois, 
The cause which recalls me again to 

yovir side 
Is a promise that rests unfulfilled," she 

replied. 
"I come to fulfil it." 

He sprang from the place 
"Where he sat, pressed his hand, as in 

doubt, o'er his face ; 
And, cautiously feeling each step o'er 

the ground 
That he trod on (as one who walks fear- 
ing the sound 
Of his footstep may startle and scare out 

of sight 
Some strange sleeping creature on which 

he would 'light 
Unawares), crept towards her ; one heavy 

hand laid 
On her shoulder in silence ; bent o'er her 

his head. 
Searched her face with a long look of 

troubled appeal 
Against doubt ; staggered backward, and 

murmured ..." Lucile ! 
Thus we meet then ? . . . here ! . . . thus ? " 
"Soul to soul, ay, Eugene, 
As I pledged you my word that we 

should meet again. 
Dead, . . ." she murmured, "long dead! 

all that lived in our lives, — 
Thine and mine, — saving that which 

ev'n life's self survives, 
The soul ! 'T is my soul seeks thine 

own. What may reach 
From my life to thy life (so wide each 

from each !) 
Save the soul to the soul ? To thy soul 

I would speak. 
May I do so ? " 

He said (worked and white was his cheek 
As he raised it), " Speak to me ! " 

Deep, tender, serene, 
And sad was the gaze which the Sceur 

Seraphine 
Held on him. She spoke. 



XXIII. 

As some minstrel may fling. 
Preluding the music yet mute in each 

string, 
A swift hand athwart the hushed heart 

of the whole. 
Seeking which note most fitly may first 

move the soul ; 
And, leaving untroubled the deep chords 

below. 
Move pathetic in numbers remote ; — 

even so 
The voice which was moving the heart 

of that man 
Far away from its yet voiceless purpose 

began, 
Far away in the pathos remote of the 

past ; 
Until, through her words, rose before 

him, at last, 
Bright and dark in their beauty, the 

hopes that were gone 
Unaccomplished from life. 

He was mute. 

XXIV. 

She went on. 

And still further down the dim past did 
she lead 

Each yielding remembrance, far, far off, 
to feed 

'Mid the pastures of youth, in the twi- 
light of hope. 

And the valleys of boyhood, the fresh- 
flowered slope 

Of life's dawning land ! 

'T is the heart of a boy, 

With its indistinct, passionate prescience 
of joy ! 

The unproved desire, — the unaimed as- 
piration, — 

The deep conscious life that forestalls 
consummation ; 

With ever a flitting delight, -r- one arm's 
length 

In advance of the august inward impulse. 
The strength 

Of the spirit which troubles the seed in 
the sand 

With the birth of the palm-tree ! Let 
ages expand 

The glorious creature ! The ages lie 
shut 

(Safe, see !) in the seed, at time's signal 
to put 

Forth their beauty and power, leaf by 
leaf, layer on layer, 



LUCILE. 



139 



Till the palm strikes the sun, and stands 

broad in blue air. 
So the palm in the palm-seed ! so, slowly 
' — so, wrought 

Year by year unperceived, hope on hope, 

thought b}"" thought, 
Trace the growth of the man from its 

germ in the boy. 
Ah, but Nature, that nurtures, may also 

destroy ! 
Charm the wind and the sun, lest some 

chance intervene ! 
While the leaf's in the bud, whUe the 

stem 's in the green, 
A light bird bends the branch, a light 

breeze breaks the bough, 
Which, if spared by the light breeze, the 

light bird, may grow 
To baffle the tempest, and rock the high 

nest. 
And take both the bird and the breeze 

to its breast. 
Shall we save a whole forest in sparing 

one seed ? 
Save the man in the boy ? in the thought 

save the deed ? 
Let the whirlwind uproot the grown 

tree, if it can ! 
Save the seed from the north-wind. So 

let the grown man 
Face out fate. Spare the man-seed in 

youth. 

He was dumb. 
She went one step further. 

XXV. 

Lo ! manhood is come. 

Apd love, the wild song-bird, hath flown 
to the tree, 

And the whirlwind comes after. Now 
. prove we, and see : 

What shade from the leaf? what sup- 
port from the branch ? 

Spreads the leaf broad and fair ? holds 
the bough strong and stanch ? 

There, he saw himself, — dark, as he 
stood on that night. 

The last when they met and they parted : 
a sight 

For heaven to mourn o'er, for hell to re- 
joice ! 

An ineffable tenderness troubled her 
voice ; • 

It grew weak, and a sigh broke it through. 
Then he said 

(Never looking at her, never lifting his 
head, 



As though, at his feet, there lay visibly 

hurled 
Those fragments), " It was not a love, 

't was a world, 
'T was a life that lay ruined, Lucile ! " 

XXVI. 

She went on. 

" So be it ! Perish Babel, arise Babylon ! 

From ruins like these rise the fanes that 
shall last. 

And to build up the future heaven shat- 
ters the past." 

"Ay," he moodily murmured, "and 
who cares to scan 

The heart's perished world, if the world 
gains a man ? 

From the past to the" present, though 
late, I appeal ; 

To the nun Seraphine, from the woman 
Lucile ! " 

XXVII. 

Lucile ! . . . the old name, — the old self ! 

silenced long : 
Heard once more ! felt once more ! 

As some soul to the throng 
Of invisible spirits admitted, baptized 
By death to a new name and nature, — 

surprised 
'Mid the songs of the seraphs, hears 

faintly, and far. 
Some voice from the earth, left below a 

dim star. 
Calling to her forlornly ; and (saddening 

the psalms 
Of the angels, and piercing the Paradise 

palms !) 
The name borne 'mid earthly beloveds 

on earth 
Sighed above some lone grave in the land 

of her birth ; — 
So that one word . . . Lucile ! . . . stirred 

the Soeur Seraphine, 
For a moment. Anon slie resumed her 

serene 
And concentrated calm. 

" Let the Nun, then, retrace 
The life of the Soldier ! " . . . she said, 

with a face 
That glowed, gladdening her words. 

'* To the present I come : 
Leave the Past." 
There her voice rose, and seemed as 

when some 
Pale Priestess proclaims from her temple 

the praise 



140 



LUCILE. 



Of the hero whose brows she is crowning 

with bays. 
Step by step did she follow his path from 

the place 
Where their two paths diverged. Year 

by year did she trace 
(Familiar with all) his, the soldier's ex- 
istence. 
Her words were of trial, endurance, re- 
sistance ; 
Of the leaguer around this besieged world 

of ours : 
And the same sentinels that ascend the 

same towers 
And report the same foes, the same fears, 

the same strife, 
Waged alike to the limits of each human 

life. 
She went on to speak of the lone moody 

lord, 
Shut up in his lone moody halls : every 

word 
Held the weight of a tear : she recorded 

the good 
He had patiently wrought through a 

whole neighborhood ; 
And the blessing that lived on the lips 

of the poor. 
By the peasant's hearthstone, or the cot- 
tager's door. 
There she paused : and her accents 

seemed dipped in the hue 
Of his own sombre heart, as the picture 

she drew 
Of the poor, proud, sad spirit, rejecting 

love's wages. 
Yet working love's work ; reading backr 

wards life's pages 
For penance ; and stubbornly, many a 

a time, 
Both missing the moral, and marring 

the rhyme. 
Then she spoke of the soldier ! . . . the 

man's work and fame. 
The pride of a nation, a world's just 

acclaim ! 
Life's inward approval ! 



Her voice reached his heart. 
And sank lower. She spoke of herself : 

how, apart 
And unseen, — far away, — she had 

watched, year by year. 
With how many a blessing, how many a 

tear, 



And how many a prayer, every stage in 

the strife : 
Guessed the thought in the deed : traced 

the love in the life : • 

Blessed the man in the man's work ! 

" Thy work ... 0, not mine I 
Thine, Lucile ! "... he exclaimed . . . 

" all the worth of it thine 
If worth there be in it ! " 

Her answer conveyed 
His reward, and her own : joy that can- 
not be said 
Alone by the voice . . . eyes — face — 

spoke silently : 
All the woman, one grateful emotion ! 

And she 
A poor Sister of Charity ! hers a life spent 
In one silent effort for others ! . . . . 

She bent 
Her divine face above him, and filled up 

his heart 
With the look that glowed from it. 

Then slow, with soft art, 
Fixed her aim, and moved to it. 

XXIX. 

He, the soldier humane, 
He, the hero ; whose heart hid in glory 

the pain 
Of a youth disappointed ; whose life had 

made known 
The value of man's life ! . . . that youth 

overthrown 
And retrieved, had it left him no pity 

for youth 
In another ? his own life of strenuous 

truth 
Accomplished in act, had it taught him 

no care 
For the life of another? ... no ! every- 
where 
In the camp which she moved through, 

she came face to face 
With some noble token, some generous 

trace 
Of his active humanity . . . 

" Well," he replied, 
"If it be so?" 

" I come from the solemn bedside 
Of a man that is dying," she said. 

"While we speak 
A life is in jeopardy." 

"Quick then ! you seek 
Aid or medicine, or what ? " 

" 'T is not needed," she said. 
" Medicine ? yes, for the mind ! 'T is a 

heart that needs aid ! 



LUCILE. 



141 



You, Eugene de Luvoia, you (and you 

only) can 
Save the life of this man. Will you 

save it ? " 

" What man ? 
How ? . . • whero ? . . . can you ask ? " 

She went rapidly on 
To her object in brief vivid words . . . 

The young son 
Of Matilda and Alfred — the boy lying 

there 
Half a mile from that tent-door — the 

father's despair, 
The mother's deep anguish — the pride 

of the boy 
In the father — the father's one hope 

and oae joy 
In the son : — the son now — wounded, 

dying ! She told 
Of the father's stern struggle with life : 

the boy's bold. 
Pure, and beautiful nature : the fair 

life before him 
If that life were but spared . . . yet a 

word might restore him ! 
The boy's broken love for the niece of 

Eugene ! 
Its pathos : the girl's love for him ; how, 

half slain 
In, his tent she had found him ; won 

from him the tale ; 
Sought to nurse back his life ; found 

her efforts still fail ; 
Beaten back by a love that was stronger 

than life ; 
Of how bravely till then he had stood in 

that strife 
Wherein England and France in their 

best blood, at last. 
Had bathed from remembrance the woun ds 

of the past. 
And shall nations be noWer than men ? 

Are not great i/ 
Men the models of nations ? For what 

is a state 
But the many's confused imitation of 

one ? 
Shall he, the fair hero of France, on the 

son 
Of his ally seek vengeance, destrojdng 

perchance 
An innocent life, — here, when England 

and France 
Have forgiven the sins of their fathers 

of yore, 
And baptized a new hope in their sons' 

recent gore ? 



She went on to tell how the boy xjad 

clung still 
To life, for the sake of life's uses, until 
From his weak hands the strong effort 

dropped, stricken down 
By the news that the heart of Constance, 

like his own. 
Was breaking beneath . . . 

But there " Hold ! " he exclaimed, 
Interrupting, "forbear!" . . . his whole 

face was inflamed 
With the heart's swarthy thunder which 

yet, while she spoke. 
Had been gathering silent, — at last the 

storm broke 
In grief or in wrath . . . 

"'T is to him, then," he cried, . . . 
Checking suddenly short the tumultuous 

stride, 
"That I owe these late greetings, — for 

him you are here, — 
For his sake you seek me, — for him, it 

is clear. 
You have deigned at the last to bethink 

you again 
Of this long-forgotten existence ! " 

"Eugfene!" 
" Ha ! fool that I was ! "... he went 

on, ..." and just now. 
While you spoke yet, my heart was 

beginning to grow 
Almost boyish again, almost sure of one 

friend ! 
Yet this was the meaning of all, — this 

the end ! 
Be it so ! There 's a sort of slow justice 

(admit !) 
In this, — that the word that man's 

finger hath writ 
In fire on my heart, I return him at 

last. 
Let him learn that word, — Never ! " 

" Ah, still to the past 
Must the present be vassal ? " she said. 

"In the hour 
We last parted I urged you to put forth 

the power 
Which I felt to be yours, in the con- 

quest of life. 
Yours, the promise to strive : mine, — 

to watch o'er the strife. 
I foresaw you would conquer ; you have 

conquered much, 
Much, indeed, that is noble ! I hail it 

as such. 
And am here to record and applaud it. 

I saw 



140 



LUCILE. 



the less in your nature, Eugene de 

Luvois, 
One peril, — one point where I feared 

you would fail 
To subdue that worst foe which a man 

can assail, — 
Himself : and I promised that, if I 

should see 
My champion once falter, or bend the 

brave knee. 
That moment would bring me again to 

his side. 
That moment is come ! for that peril 

was pride. 
And you falter. I plead for yourself, 

and one other, 
For that gentle child without father or 

mother, 
To whom you are both. I plead, soldier 

of France, 
For your own nobler nature, — and plead 

for Constance ! " 
At the sound of that name he averted 

his head- 
" Constance ! . . . Ay, she entered my 

lone life " (he said) 
"When its sun was long set ; and hung 

over its night 
Her own starry childhood. I have but 

that light. 
In the midst of much darkness ! Who 

names rae but she 
With titles of love ? and what rests there 

for me 
In the silence of age save the voice of 

that child ? 
The child of my own better life, unde- 

filed! 
My creature, carved out of my heart of 

hearts ! " 

"Say," 
Said the Sceur Seraphine, — "are you 

able to lay 
Your hand as a knight on your heart as 

a man 
And swear that, whatever may happen, 

you can 
Feel assured for the life you thus cher- 
ish ? " 

"How so?" 
He looked up. " If the boy should die 

thus ? " 

"Yes, I know 
What your look would imply . . . this 

sleek stranger forsooth ! 
Because on his cheek was the red rose 

of youth 



The heart of my niece must bFeak for 

it!" 

She cried, 
" ISTay, but hear me yet further ! " 

With slow heavy stride, 
Unheeding her words, he was pacing the 

tent, 
He was muttering low to himself as he 

went. 
"Ay, these young things lie safe in our 

heart just so long 
As their wings are in growing ; and 

when these are strong 
They break it, and farewell ! the bird 

flies ! " . . . 

The nun 
Laid her hand on the soldier, and mur- 
mured, "The sun 
Is descending, life fleets while we talk 

thus ! 0, yet 
Let this day upon one final victory set, 
And complete a life's conquest ! " 

He said, "Understand ! 
If Constance wed the son of this man, 

by whose hand 
My heart hath been robbed, she is lost 

to my life ! 
Can her home be my home ? Can I 

claim in the wife 
Of that man's son the child of my age ? 

At her side 
Shall he stand on my hearth ? Shall I 

sue to the bride 
Of , . . enough ! 

"Ah, and you immemorial halls 
Of my Norman forefathers, whose shadow 

yet falls 
On my fancy, and fuses hope, memory, 

past. 
Present, — all, in one silence ! old trees 

to the blast 
Of the Nortii Sea repeating the tale of 

old days, 
Nevermore, nevermore in the wild bosky 

ways 
Shall I hear through your umbrage an- 
cestral the wind 
Prophesy as of yore, when it shook the 

deep mind 
Of my boyhood, with whispers from out 

the far years 
Of love, fame, the raptures life cools 

down with tears ! 
Henceforth shall the tread of a Vargi'ave 

alone 
Rouse your echoes ? " 

" 0, think not," she said, " of the son 



LUCILE. 



143 



Of the man whom unjustly you hate ; 

only think 
Of this young human creature, that 

cries from the brink 
Of a grave to your mercy ! 

" Recall your own words 
(Words my memory mournfully ever 

records !) 
How with love may be wrecked a whole 

life ! then, Eugene, 
Look with me (still those words in our 

ears !) once again 
At this young soldier sinking from life 

here, — dragged down 
By the weight of the love in his heart : 

no renown, 
No fame comforts Mm I nations shout 

not above 
The lone grave down to which he is 

bearing the love 
Which life has rejected ! Will you 

stand apart ? 
You, with such a love's memory deep in 

your heart ! 
You the hero, whose life hath perchance 

been led on 
Through the deeds it hath wrought to 

the fame it hath won. 
By recalling the visions and dreams of 

a youth. 
Such as lies at your door now : who 

have but, in truth, 
To stretch forth a hand, to speak only 

one word. 
And by that word you rescue a life ! " 

He was stirred. 
Still he sought to put from him the cup ; 

bowed his face 
On his hand ; and anon, as though wish- 
ing to chase 
With one angi'y gesture his own thoughts 

aside. 
He sprang up, brushed past her, and 

bitterly cried, 
" No ! — Constknce wed a Vargrave ! — 

I cannot consent ! " 
Then uprose the Sceur Seraphine. 

The low tent, 
In her sudden uprising, seemed dwarfed 

by the height 
From which those imperial eyes poured 

the light 
Of their deep silent sadness upon him. 

No wonder 
He felt, as it were, his own stature 

shrink under 



The compulsion of that grave regard ! 

For between 
The Due de Luvois and the Soeur Sera- 
phine 
At that moment there rose all the height 

of one soul 
O'er another ; she looked down on him 

from the whole 
Lonely length of a life. There were sad 

nights and days. 
There were long months and years in 

that heart-searching gaze ; 
And her voice, when she spoke, with 

sharp pathos thriUed through 
And transfixed him. 

" Eugene de Luvois, but for you, 
I might have been now, — not this 

wandering nun, 
But a mother, a wife, — pleading, not 

for the son 
Of another, but blessing some child of my 

own. 
His, — the man's that I once loved ! . . , 

Hush ! that which is done 
I regret not. I breathe no reproaches. 

That 's best 
Which God sends. 'T was His will : it 

is mine. And the rest 
Of that riddle I will not look back to. 

He reads 
In your heart, — He that judges of all 

thoughts and deeds, 
With eyes, mine forestall not ! This 

only I say : 
You have not the right (read it, you, as 

you may !) 
To say ... ' I am the wronged.' "... 
" Have I wronged thee ? — wronged 

thee ! " 
He faltered, "Lucile, ah, Lucile ! " 

"Nay, not me," 
She murmured, "but man ! The lone 

nun standing here 
Has no claim upon earth, and is passed 

from the sphere 
Of earth's wrongs and earth's reparations. 

But she. 
The dead woman, Lucile, she whose 

grave is in me. 
Demands from her grave reparation to 

man, 
Eeparation to God. Heed, heed, 

while you can. 
This voice from the grave ! " 

" Hush ! " he moaned, " I obey 
The Soeur Seraphine. There, Lucile ! let 

this pay 



144 



LUCILE. 



Every debt that is due to that grave. 

Now lead on : 
I follow you, Soeur Seraphine ! ... To 

the son 
Of Lord Alfred Vargrave . . . and 

then," ... 

As he spoke 
He lifted the tent-door, and down the dun 

smoke 
Pointed out the dark bastions, with bat- 
teries crowned, 
Of the city beneath them . . . 

" Then, there, underground. 
And valete et plaudite, soon as may be ! 
Let the old tree go down to the earth, — 

the old tree. 
With the worm at its heart ! Lay the 

axe to the root ! 
Who wiU miss the old stump, so we save 

the young shoot ? 
A Vargrave ! . . . this pays all . . . Lead 

on ! ... In the seed 
Save the forest ! . . . 

" I follow . . . forth, forth ! where 

you lead." 



The day was declining ; a day sick and 

damp. 
In a blank ghostly glare shone the bleak 

ghostly camp 
Of the English. Alone in his dim, 

spectral tent 
(Himself the wan spectre of youth), with 

eyes bent 
On the daylight departing, the sick man 

was sitting 
Upon his low pallet. These thoughts, 

vaguely flitting, 
Crossed the 'silence between him and 

death, which seemed near. 
— " Pain o'erreaches itself, so is balked ! 

else, how bear 
This intense and intolerable solitude. 
With its eye on my heart and its hand 

on my blood ? 
Pulse by pulse ! Day goes down : yet 

she comes not again. 
Other suffering, doubtless,- where hope 

is more plain, 
Claims her elsewhere. I die, strange ! 

and scarcely feel sad. 
0, to think of Constance thus, and not 

to go mad ! 
But Death, it would seem, dulls the 

sense to his own 
Dull doings ..." 



XXXI. 

Between those sick eyes and the sun 
A shadow fell thwart. 

XXXII. 

'T is the pale nun once more ! 
But who stands at her side, mute and 

dark in the door ? 
How oft had he watched through the 

glory and gloom 
Of the battle, with long, longing looks 

that dim plume 
Which now (one stray sunbeam upon it) 

shook, stooped 
To where the tent-curtain, dividing, was 

looped ! 
How that stem face had haunted and 

hovered about 
The dreams it still scared ! through what 

fond fear and doubt 
Had the boy yearned in heart to the 

hero ! (What 's like 
A boy's love for some famous man ?) . . . 

0, to strike 
A wild path through the battle, down 

striking perchance 
Some rash foeman too near the great 

soldier of France, 
And so fall in his glorious regard ! . . . 

Oft, how oft 
Had his heart flashed this hope out, 

whilst watching aloft 
The dim battle that plume dance and 

dart, — never seen 
So near till this moment ! how eager to 

glean 
Every stray word, dropped through the 

camp-babble in praise 
Of his hero, — each tale of old ventu- 
rous days 
In the desert ! And now . . . could he 

speak out his heart 
Face to face with that man ere he died ! 

XXXIII. 

With a start 
The sick soldier sprang up : the blood 

sprang up in him, 
To his throat, and o'erthrew him : he 

reeled back : a dim 
Sanguine haze filled his eyes ; in. hiaJ 

ears rose the din M 

And rush, as of cataracts loosened within, 
Through which he saw faintly, andi 

heard, the pale nun j 

(Looking larger than life, where shaj 

stood in the sun) I 



LUCILE. 



145 



Point to him and murmur, " Behold ! " 

Then that plume 
Seemed to wave like a iire, and fade off 

in the gloom 
Which momently put out the world. 

XXXIV. 

To his side 
Moved the man the boy dreaded yet loved 

..." Ah ! "... he sighed, 
"The smooth brow, the fair Vargrave 

face ! and those eyes, 
AU the mother's ! The old things again ! 
"Do not rise. 
You suffer, young man ? " 

The Boy. 
Sir, I die. 

The Duke. 

Not so young ! 

The Boy. 

So young ? yes ! and yet I have tangled 
among 

The frayed warp and woof of this brief 
life of mine 

Other lives than my own. Could my 
death but untwine 

The vext skein . . . but it will not. 
Yes, Duke, young — so young ! 

And I knew you not ? yet I have done 
you a wrong 

Irreparable ! . . . late, too late to repair. 

If I knew any means . . . but I know 
none ! . . . I swear. 

If this broken fraction of time could ex- 
tend 

Into infinite lives of atonement, no end 

Would seem too remote for my grief 
(could that be !) 

To include it ! Not too late, however, 
for me 

To entreat : is it too late for you to for- 
give? 

The Duke. 
You wrong — my forgiveness — explain. 

The Boy. 

Could I live ! 
Such a very few hours left to life, yet I 

shrink, 
I falter ! . . . Yes, Duke, your forgive- 
ness I think 
Should free my soul hence. 
10 



Ah ! you could not surmise 
That a boy's beating heart, burning 

thoughts, longing eyes 
Were following you evermore (heeded 

not!) 
While the battle was flowing between 

us : nor what 
Eager, dubious footsteps at nightfall oft 

went 
With the wind and the rain, round and 

round your blind tent. 
Persistent and wild as the wind and the 

rain. 
Unnoticed as these, weak as these, and 

as vain ! 
0, how obdurate then looked your tent ! 

The waste air 
Grew stern at the gleam which said . . . 

"Off! he is there!" 
I know not what merciful mystery now 
Brings you here, whence the man whom 

you see lying low 
Other footsteps (not those !) must soon 

bear to the grave. 
But death is at hand, and the few words 

I have 
Yet to speak, I must speak them at once. 
Duke, I swear, 
As I lie here, (Death's angel too close 

not to hear I) 
That I meant not this wrong to you. 

Due de Luvois, 
I loved your niece — loved ? why, I love 

her ! I saw. 
And, seeing, how could I but Icv^e her? 

I seemed 
Born to love her. Alas, were that all ! 

had I dreamed 
Of this love's cruel consequence as it 

rests now 
Ever fearfully present before me, I vow 
That the secret, unknown, had gone 

down to the tomb 
Into which I descend ... why, whilst 

there was room 
In life left for warning, had no one the 

heart 
To warn me ? Had any one whispered 

..." Depart ! " 
To the hope the whole world seemed in 

league then to nurse I 
Had any one hinted ..." Beware of 

the curse 
Which is coming ! " There was not a 

voice raised to tell. 
Not a hand moved to warn from the 

blow ere it fell. 



146 



LUCILE. 



And then . . . then the Mow fell on both I 

This is why 
I implore you to pardon that great injury 
Wrought on her, and, through her, 

wrought on you, Heaven knows 
How unwittingly ! 

The Duke. 
Ah ! . . . and, young soldier, suppose 
That I came here to seek, not grant, 
pardon ? — 

The Boy. 

Of whom ? 

The Duke. 

Of yourself. 

The Boy. 
Duke, I bear in my heart to the tomb 

No boyish resentment ; not one lonely 
thought 

That honors you not. In all this there 
is nought 

'T is for me to forgive. 

Every glorious act 

Of your great life starts forward, an elo- 
quent fact. 

To confirm in my boy's heart its faith in 
your own. 

And have I not hoarded, to ponder 
upon, 

A hundred great acts from your life ? 
Nay, all these. 

Were they so many lying and false wit- 
nesses, 

Does there rest not one voice, which was 
never untrue ? 

I believe in Constance, Duke, as she 
does in you ! 

In this great world around us, wherever 
we turn. 

Some grief irremediable we discern ; 

And yet — there sits God, calm in 
Heaven above ! 

Do we trust one whit less in His justice 
or love ? 

I judge not. 

The Duke. 
Enough ! hear at last, then, the truth. 
Your father and I, — foes we were in 

our youth. 
It matters not why. Yet thus much 

understand : 
The hope of my youth was signed out by 
his hand. 



I was not of those whom the buffets of 

fate 
Tame and teach : and my heart buried 

slain love in hate. 
If your own frank young heart, yet un- 
conscious of all 
Which turns the heart's blood in its 

springtide to gall. 
And unable to guess even aught that 

the furrow 
Across these gray brows hides of sin or 

of sorj-ow. 
Comprehends not the evil and grief of 

my life, "" 

'T will at least comprehend how intense 

was the strife 
Which is closed in this act of atone- 
ment, whereby 
I seek in the son of my youth's enemy 
The friend of my age. Let the present 

release 
Here acquitted the past ! In the name 

of my niece. 
Whom for my life in yours as a hostage 

I give, 
Are you gi-eat enough, boy, to forgive 

me, — and live ? 

Whilst he spoke thus, a doubtful tu- 
multuous joy 
Chased its ileeting effects o'er the face 

of the boy : 
As when some stormy moon, in a long 

cloud confined, 
Struggles outward through shadows, the 

varying wind 
Alternates, and bursts, self-surprised, 

from her prison, 
So that slow joy grew clear in his face. 

He had risen 
To answer the Duke ; but strength failed 

every limb ; 
A strange, happy feebleness trembled 

through him. 
With a faint cry of rapturous wonder, 

he sank 
On the breast of the nun, who stood 

near. 

"Yes, boy ! thank 
This guardian angel," the Duke said. 

"I — you. 
We owe all to her. Crown her work". 

Live ! be true 
To your young life's fair promise, and 

live for her sake ! " 
"Yes, Duke : I will live. I must live, 

— live to make 



LUCILE. 



147 



My whole life the answer j'ou claim," 

the boy said, 
" For joy does not kill ! " 

Back again the faint head 
Declined on the nun's gentle bosom. 

She saw 
His lips quiver, and motioned the Duke 

to withdraw 
And leave them a moment together. 

He eyed 
Them both with a wistful regard ; turned, 

and sighed, 
And lifted the tent-door, and passed from 

the tent. 

XXXV. 

Like a furq^ce, the fervid, intense Occi- 
dent 
From its hot seething levels a great glare 

struck up 
On the sick metal sky. And, as out of 

a cup 
Some witch watches boiling wild por- 

. tents arise, 
Monstrous clouds, massed, misshapen, 

and tinged with strange dyes, 
Hovered over the red fume, and changed 

to weird shapes 
As of snakes, salamanders, efts, lizards, 

storks, apes. 
Chimeras, and hydras : whilst — ever 

the same — 
In the midst of all these (creatures fused 

by his flame. 
And changed by his influence !) change- 
less, as when. 
Ere he lit down to death generations of 

men, 
O'er that crude and ungainly creation, 

which there 
With wild shapes this cloud-world seemed 

to mimic in air. 
The eye of Heaven's all-judging witness, 

he shone. 
And shall shine on the ages we reach 

not, — the sun ! 

XXXVI, 

Nature posted her parable thus in the 
skies. 

And the man's heart bore witness. Life's 
vapors ai'ise 

And fall, pass and change, group them- 
selves and revolve 

Round the great central life, which is 
Love : these dissolve 



And resume themselves, here assume 

beauty, there terror ; 
And the phantasmagoria of infinite error. 
And endless complexity, lasts but a 

while ; 
Life's self, the immortal, immutable 

smile 
Of God, on the soul, in the deep heart 

of Heaven 
Lives changeless, unchanged : and our 

morning and even 
Are earth's alternations, not Heaven's. 



XXXVII. 

While he yet 
Watched the skies, with this thought in 

his heart ; while he set 
Thus unconsciously all his life forth in 

his mind. 
Summed it up, searched it out, proved 

it vapor and wind, 
And embraced the new life which that 

hour had revealed, — 
Love's life, which earth's life had de- 
faced and concealed ; 
Lucile left the tent and stood by him. 

Her tread 
Aroused him ; and, turning towards her, 

he said : 
" Sceur Seraphtne, are you happy ? " 

•' Eugene, 
What is happier than to have hoped not 

in vain ? " 
She answered, — "And you ? " 

"Yes." 
"You do not repent ? " 
"No." 

"Thank Heaven!" she murmured. 

He musingly bent 
His looks on the sunset, and somewhat 

apart 
Where he stood, sighed, as though to 

his innermost heart, 
"0 blessed are they, amongst whom I 

was not, 
Whose morning unclouded, without stain 

or spot. 
Predicts a pure evening ; who, sunlike, 

in light 
Have traversed, unsullied, the world, 

and set bright ! " 

But she in response, "Mark yon ship 

far away. 
Asleep on the wave, in the last light of 

day, 



148 



LUCILE. 



"With all its hushed thunders shut up ! 
"Would you know 

A thought which came to me a few days 
ago, 

Whilst watching those ships ? . . . When 
the great Ship of Life, 

Surviving, though shattered, the tumult 
and strife 

Of earth's angry element, — masts broken 
short. 

Decks drenched, bulwarks beaten, — 
drives safe into port. 

When the Pilot of Galilee, seen on the 
• strand. 

Stretches over the waters a welcoming 
hand ; 

When, heeding no longer the sea's baf- 
fled roar. 

The mariner turns to his rest ever- 
more ; 

What will then be the answer the helms- 
man must give ? 

Will it be . . . ' Lo our log-book ! Thus 
once did we live 

In the zones of the South ; thus we trav- 
ersed the seas 

Of the Orient ; there dwelt with the 
Hesperides ; 

Thence followed the west-wind ; here, 
eastward we turned ; 

The stars failed us there ; just here land 
we discerned 

On our lee ; there the storm overtook us 
at last ; 

That day went the bowsprit, the next 
day the mast ; 

There the mermen came round us, and 
there we saw bask 

A siren ' ? The Captain of Port will he 
ask 

Any one of such questions ? I cannot 
think so ! 

But ... ' What is the last Bill of Health 
you can show ? ' 

Not — How fared the soul through the 
trials she passed ? 

But — What is the state of that soul at 
the last ? " 

" May it be so ! " he sighed. " There ! 
the sun drops, behold ! " 

And indeed, whilst he spoke, all the pur- 
ple and gold 

In the west had turned ashen, save one 
fading strip 

Of light that yet gleamed from the dark 
nether lip 



Of a long reef of cloud ; and o'er sullen 

ravines 
And ridges the raw damps were hanging 

white screens 
Of melancholy mist. 

" Nunc dimittis!" she said. 
" God of the living ! whilst yet 'mid 

the dead 
And the dying we stand here alive, and 

thy days 
Returning, admit space for prayer and 

for praise. 
In both these confirm us ! 

" The helmsman, Eugene, 
Needs the compass to steer by. Pray 

always. Again 
We two part : each to work out Heaven's 

will : you, I trust, 
In the world's ample witness ; and I, as 

I must. 
In secret and silence : yon, love, fame, 

await ; 
Me, sorrow and sickness. We meet at 

one gate 
When all 's over. The ways they are 

many and wide, 
And seldom are two ways the same. 

Side by side 
May we stand at the same little door 

when all 's done ! 
The ways they are many, the end it is one. 
He that knocketh shall enter : who asks 

shall obtain : 
And who seeketh, he findeth. Eemem- 

ber, Eugene ! " 
She turned to depart. 

"Whither? whither?" ... he said. 
She stretched forth her hand where, al- 
ready outspread 
On the darkened horizon, remotely they 

saw 
The French camp-fires kindling. 

' ' Due de Luvois, 
See yonder vast host, with its manifold 

heart 
Made as one man's by one hope ! That 

hope 't is yoiir part 
To aid towards achievement, to save from 

reverse : 
Mine, through suffering to soothe, and 

through sickness to nurse. 
I go to my work : you to yours." 



Whilst she spoke. 
On the wide wasting evening there dis- 
tantly broke 



LUCILE. 



149 



The low roll of musketry. Straightway, 

anon, 
From the dim Flag-staff Battery bel- 
lowed a gun. 
•' Our chasseurs are at it ! " he muttered. 
She turned, 
Smiled, and passed up the twilight. 

He faintly discerned 
Her form, now and then, on the fiat 

lurid sky 
Rise, and sink, and recede through the 

mists ; by and by 
The vapors closed round, and he saw her 
^ no more. 

XXXIX. 
Nor shall we. For her mission, accom- 

plishiBd, is o'er. 
Tlie mission of genius on earth ! To 

uplift, 
Purify, and confirm by its own gracious 

gift, 
The world, in despite of the world's dull 

endeavor 
To degrade, and drag down, and oppose 

it forever. 
The mission of genius : to watch, and to 

wait. 
To. renew, to redeem, and to regenerate. 
The mission of woman on earth ! to give 

birth 
To the mercy of Heaven descending on 

earth. 
The mission of woman : permitted to 

bruise 
The head of the serpent, and sweetly in- 
fuse, 
Through the sorrow and sin of earth's 

registered curse, 
The blessing which mitigates all : born 

to nurse. 
And to soothe, and to solace, to help 

and to heal 
The sick world that leans on her. This 

was Lucile. 



A power hid in pathos : a fire veiled in 
cloud : 

Yet still burning outward : a branch 
which, though bowed 

By the bird in its passage, springs up- 
ward again : 

Through all symbols I search for her 
sweetness — in vain ! 

Judge her love by her life. For our life 
is but love 



In act. Pure was hers : and the dear 

God above. 
Who knows what His creatures have 

need of for life. 
And whose love includes all loves, 

through much patient strife 
Led her soul into peace. Love, though 

love may be given 
In vain, is yet lovely. Her own native 

heaven 
More clearly she mirrored, as life's 

troubled dream 
Wore away ; and love sighed into rest, 

like a stream 
That breaks its heart over wild rocks 

toward the shore 
Of the great sea which hushes it up ever- 
more I 
With its little wild wailing. No stream 

from its source 
Flows seaward, how lonely soever its 

course. 
But what some land is gladdened. No 

star ever rose 
And set, without influence somewhere. 

Who knows 
What earth needs from earth's lowest 

creature ? No life 
Can be pure in its purpose and strong in 

its strife 
And all life not be purer and stronger 

.■ thereby. 
The spirits of just men made perfect on 

high. 
The army of martyrs who stand by the 

Throne 
And gaze into the Face that makes glo- 
rious their own. 
Know this, surely, at last. Honest love, 

honest sorrow. 
Honest work for the day, honest hope 

for the morrow, 
Are these worth nothing more than the 

hand they make weary, 
The heart they have saddened, the life 

they leave dreary ? 
Hush ! the sevenfold heavens to the 

voice of the Spirit 
Echo : He that o'ercometh shall all 

things inherit. 



The moon was, in fire, carried up through 

the fog ; 
The loud fortress barked at her like a 

chained dog. 



150 THE APPLE OF LIEE. 



The horizon pulsed flame, the air sound. 

All without, 
War and winter, and twilight, and ter-_ 

ror, and doubt ; 



Eugene de Lxivois with a deep, thought- 
ful smile 
Lingered, looking, and listening, lone by 
» ' the tent. 



Ail within, light, warmth, calm ! TAt last he withdrew, and night closed as 

In the twilight, long while I he went. 



THE APPLE OF LIFE. 



From the river Euphrates, the river whose source is in Paradise, far 
As red Egypt, — sole lord of the land and the sea, 'twixt the home of th'^ star 
That is born in the blush of the East, and the porch of the chambers of rest 
Where the great sea is girded with fire, and Orion returns in the West, 
And the ships come and go in grand silence, — King Solomon reigned. And behold, 
In that time there was everywdrere silver as common as stones be, and gold 
That for plenty was 'counted as silver, and cedar as sycamore-trees 
That ai'e found in the vale, for abundance. For God to the King gave all t^iese. 
With glory exceeding ; moreover all kings of the earth to him came, 
Because of his wisdom, to hear him. So great was King Solomon's fame. 

And for all this the King's soul was sad. And his heart said within him, "Ah* 
For man dies ! if his glory abideth, himself from his glory shall pass. 
And that which remaineth behind him, he seeth it not any more : 
For how shall he know what comes after, who knoweth not what went before ? 
I have planted me gardens and vineyards, and gotten me silver and gold, 
And my hand from whatever my heart hath desired I did not withhold : 
And what profit have I in the works of my hands which I take not away ? 
I have searched out wisdom and knowledge : and what do they profit me, they ? 
As the fool dieth, so doth the wise. What is gathered is scattered again. 
As the breath of the beasts, even so is the breath of the children of men : 
And the same thing befalleth them both. And not any man's soul is his own," 

This he thought, as he sat in his garden and watched the great sun going dowi/ 
In the glory thereof ; and the earth and the sky by the beam of the same 
Were clothed with the gladness of color, and bathed in the beauty of flame. 
And " Behold," said the King, " in a moment the glory shall vanish ! " Even then, 
While he spake, he was 'ware of a man drawing near him, who seemed to his ken 
(By the hair in its blackness like flax that is burned in the hemp-dresser's shed, 
And the brow's smoky hue, and the smouldering eyeball more livid than lead) 
As the sons of the land that lies under the sword of the Cherub whose wing 
Wi'aps in wrath the shut gateways of Paradise. He, being come to the King, 
Seven times made obeisance before him. To whom, "What art thou," the King ■ 
cried, ■ 

"That thus unannounced to King Solomon comest ?" The man, spreading wide ^ 
The palm of his right hand, showed in it an apple yet bright from the Tree 
In whose stem springs the life never-failing which Sin lost to Adam, when he. 
Tasting knowledge forbidden, found death in the fruit of it, . . , So doth the Giver I 
Evil gifts to the evil apportion. And " Hail ! let the King live forever ! " 
Bowing down at the feet of the monarch, and laughingly, even as one 
Whose meaning, in joy or in jest, hovers hid 'twixt the word and the tone, 



THE APPLE OF LIFE. 151 

Said the stranger, " For lo ye " (and lightly he dropped in the hand of the King 

That apple), " from 'twixt the four rivers of Eden, God gave me to bring 

To his servant King Solomon, even to my lord that on Israel's throne 

He hath 'stablisht, this fruit from the Tree in whose branch Life abideth : for none 

Shall taste death, having tasted this apple." 

And therewith he vanished. 

Eemained 
In the hand of the King the life-apple : ambrosial of breath, golden -grained. 
Rosy-bright as a star dipt in sunset. The King turned it o'er, and perused 
The fruit, which, alluring his lip, in his hand lay untasted. 

He mused, 
" Life is good : but not life in itself. Life eternal, eternally young. 
That were life to be lived, or desired ! Well it were if a man could prolong 
The manhood that moves in the muscles, the rapture that mounts in the brain 
When life at the prime, in the pastime of living, led on by the train 
Of the jubilant senses, exulting goes forth, brave of body and spirit, 
To conquer, Choose, claim, and enjoy what 't was born to achieve or inherit. 
The dance, and the festal procession ! the pride in the strenuous play 
Of the sinews that, pliant of power, the will, though it wanton, obey ! 
When the veins are yet wishful, and in them the bountiful impulses beat, 
When the lilies of Love are yet living, the roses of Beauty yet sweet : 
And the eye glows with glances that kindle, the lip breathes the warmth that inspires. 
And the hand hath yet vigor to seize the good thing which the spirit desires ! 
well for the foot that bounds forward ! and ever the wind it awakes 
Lifts no lock from the foi-ehead yet white, not a leaf that is withered yet shakes 
From the loose crown that laughs on young tresses ! and ever the earth and the skies 
Are crammed with audacious contingencies, measureless means of surprise ! 
-Life is sweet to the young that yet know not what life is. But life, after Youth, 
The gay liar, leaves hold of the bauble, and Age, with his terrible truth. 
Picks it up, and perceives it is broken, and knows it unfit to engage 
The care it yet craves. . . . Life eternal, eternally wedded to Age ! 
What gain were in that ? Why should any man seek what he loathes to prolong ? 
The twilight that darkens the eyeball : the dull ear that 's deaf to the song, 
When the maidens rejoice and the bride to the bridegroom, with music, is led : 
The palsy that shakes 'neath the blossoms that fall from the chill bridal bed. 
When the hand saith *Idid,' not ' I will do,' the heart saith '/< was,' not 

"Tioillbe,' 
Too late in man's life is Forever, — too late comes this apple to me ! " 
Then the King rose. And lo, it was evening. And leaning, because he was old, 
On the sceptre that, curiously sculptured in ivory garnished with gold. 
To others a rod of dominion, to him was a staff for support. 
Slow paced he the murmurous pathways where myrtles, in court up to court, 
Mixt with roses in garden on garden, were ranged around fountains that fed 
With cool music green odorous twilights : and so, never lifting his head 
To look up from the way he walked wearily, he to the House of his Pride 
Eeascended, and entered. 

• In cluster, high lamps, spices, odors, each side, 

Burning inward and onward, from cinnamon ceilings, down distances vast 
Of voluptuous vistas, illumined deep halls through whose silentness passed 
King Solomon sighing ; where columns colossal stood, gathered in groves 
As the trees of the forest in Libanus, — there where the wind, as it moves. 
Whispers, " I, too, am Solomon's servant ! " — huge trunks hid in garlands of gold, 
On whose tops the skilled sculptors of Sidon had granted men's gaze to behold 
How the phoenix that sits on the cedar's lone summit 'mid fragrance and fire, 
Ever dying, and living, hath loaded with splendors her funeral pyre ; 



5^52 THE APPLE OF LIFE. 

How the stork 'builds her nest on the pine-top ; the date from the palm-branch 

depends ; 
And the aloe's great blossom bursts, crowning with beauty the life that it ends. 
And from hall on to hall, in the doors, mute, magnificent slaves, watchful -eyed. 
Bowed to earth as King Solomon passed them. And, passing, King Solomon 

sighed. 
And, from hall on to hall pacing feebly, the king mused ... "0 fair Shulamite ! 
Thy beauty is brighter than starlight on Hebron when Hebron is bright, 
Thy sweetness is sweeter than Carmel. The King rules the nations ; but thou, 
Thou rulest the King, my Beloved." 

So murmured King Solomon low 
To himself, as he passed through the portal of porphyry, that dripped, as he passed, 
From the myrrh-sprinkled wreaths on the locks and the lintels ; and entered at last, 
Still sighing, the sweet cedarn chamber, contrived for repose and delight, 
"Where the beautiful Shulamite slumbered. And straightway, to left and to right, 
Bowing down as he entered, the Spirits in bondage to Solomon, there 
Keeping watch o'er his love, sank their swords, spread their wings, and evanished 

in air. 
The King with a kiss woke the sleeper. And, showing the fruit in his hand, 
" Behold ! this was brought me erewhile by one coming," he said, "from the land 
That lies under the sword of the Cherub. 'T was pluckt by strange hands from 

the Tree 
Of whose fruit whoso tastes lives forever. And therefore I bring it to thee. 
My Beloved. For thou of the daughters of women art fairest. And lo, 
I, the King, I that love thee, whom men of man's sons have called wisest, I know 
That in knowledge is sorrow. Much thought is much care. In the beauty of youth. 
Not the wisdom of age, is enjoyment. Nor spring, is it sweeter, in truth, 
Than winter to roses once withered. The garment, though broidered with gold, 
Fades apace where the moth frets the fibres. So I, in my glory, grow old. 
And this life maketh mine (save the bliss of my soul in the beauty of thee) 
No sweetness so great now that greatly unsweet 't were to lose what to me 
Life prolonged, at its utmost, can promise. But thine, O thou spirit of bliss. 
Thine is all that the living desire, — youth, beauty, love, joy in all this ! 
And were it not well for the praise of the world to maintain evermore 
This mould of a woman, God's masterwork, made for mankind to adore ? 
"Wherefore keep thou the gift I resign. Live forever, rejoicing in life ! 
And of women unborn yet the fairest shall still be King Solomon's wife." 
So he said, and so dropped in her bosom the apple. 

But when he was gone. 
And the beautiful Shulamite, eying the gift of the King, sat alone 
"With the thoughts the King's words had awakened, as ever she turned and perused 
The fruit that, alluring her lip, in her hand lay untasted — she mused, 
" l^ife is good ; but not life in itself. So is youth, so is beauty. Mere stuflF 
Are all these for Love's usance. To live, it is well ; but it is not enough. 
"Well, too, to be fair, to be young ; but what good is in beauty and youth 
If the lovely and young are not surer than they that be neither, forsooth. 
Young nor lovely, of being beloved ? my love, if thou lovest not me. 
Shall I love my own life ? Am I fair, if not fair, Azariah, to thee." 
Then she hid in her bosom the apple. And rose. 

And, reversing the ring 
That, inscribed with the word that works wonders, and signed with the seal of the 

King, 
Compels even spirits to obedience — (for she, for a plaything, erewhile 
From King Solomon's awful forefinger, had won it away with a smile) — 



THE APPLE OF LIFE. 153 

The beautiful Shulamite folded her veil o'er her forehead and e5'es, 

And unseen from the sweet cedarn chamber, unseen through the long galleries, 

Unseen from the palace, she passed, and passed down' to the city unseen, 

Unseen passed the green garden wicket, the vineyard, the cypresses green, 

And stood by the doors of the house of the Prince Azariah. And cried, 

In the darkness she cried, — ' ' Azariah, awaken ! ope, ope to nie wide ! 

Ope the door, ope the lattice ! Arise ! Let me in, my love ! It is I. 

I, the bride of King Solomon, love thee. Love, tarry not. Love, shall I die 

At thy doors ? I am sick of desire. For my love is more comely than gold. 

More precious to me is ray love than the throne of a king that is old. 

Behold, I have passed through the city, unseen of the watchmen. I stand 

By the doors of the house of my love, till my love lead me in by the hand." 

Azariah arose. And unbolted the door to the fair Shulamite. 

*' my queen, what dear folly is this, that hath led thee alone, and by night. 

To the house of King Solomon's servant ? For lo you, the watchmen awake. 

And much for my own, my queen, must I fear, and much more for thy sake. 

For at that which is done in the chamber the leek^on the house-top shall peep : 

And the h«nd of a king it is heavy : the eyes of a king never sleep : 

But the bird of the air beareth news to the king, and the stars of the sky 

Are as soldiers by night on the turrets. I fear, my queen, lest we die." 

" Fear thou not, my love ! Azariah, fear nothing. For lo, what I bring ! 

'T is the fruit of the Tree that in Paradise God hideth under the wing 

Of the Cherub that chased away Adam. And whoso this apple doth eat 

Shall live — live forever ! And since unto me my own life is less sweet 

Than thy love, Azariah, (sweet only my life is if thou lovest me ! ) 

Therefore eat ! Live, and love, for life's sake, still, the love that gives life unto 

thee ! " 
Then she held to his lips the life-apple, and kissed him. 

But soon as alone, 
Azariah leaned out from his lattice, he muttered, " 'T is well ! She is gone." 
-While the fruit in his hand lay untasted. "Such visits," he mused, "may cost 

dear. 
In the love of the great is great danger, much trouble, and care more than cheer." 
Then he laughed and stretched forth his strong arms. For he heard from the 

streets of the city 
The song of the women that sing in the doors after dark their love ditty. 
And the clink of the wine-cup, the voice of the wanton, the tripping of feet, 
And the laughter of youths running after, allured him. And " Life, it is sweet 
While it lasts," sang the women, " and sweeter the good minute, in that it goes. 
For who, if the rose iloomed forever, so greatly would care for the rose ? 
Wherefore haste ! pluck the time in the blossom." The prince mused, " The coun- 
sel is well." 
And the fruit to his lips he uplifted : yet paused. " "Who is he that can tell 
"What his days shall bring forth ? Life forever . . . But what sort of life ? Ah, 

the doubt ! " 
'Neath his cloak then he thrust back the apple. And opened the door and passed out 
To the house of the harlot Egyptian. ' And mused, as he went, " Life is good : 
But not life in itself. It is well while the wine-cup is hot in the blood, 
And a man goeth whither he listeth, and doeth the thing that he will. 
And liveth his life as he lusteth, and taketh in freedom his fill 
Of the pleasure that pleaseth his humor, and feareth no snare by the way. 
Shall I care to be loved by a queen, if my pride with my freedom I pay ? 
Better far is a handful in quiet than both hands, though filled to o'erflow 
With pride, in vexation of spirit. And sweeter the roses that blow 
From the wild seeds the wind, where he wanders, with heedless beneficence flings, 
Than those that are guarded by dragons to brighten the gardens of kings. 



J54. THE APPLE OF LIFE. 

Let a man take Ms chance, and be happy. The hart by the hunter pursued. 
That far from the herd on the hill-top bounds swift through the blue solitude, 
] s more to be envied, though Death with his dart follow fast to destroy, 
'J'han the tame beast that, pent in the paddock, tastes neither the danger nor joy 
Of the mountain, and all its surprises. The main thing is, not to live long. 
But to live. Better moments of rapture soon ended than ages of wrong. 
Life's feast is best spiced by the flavor of death in it. Just the one chance 
To lose it to-morrow the life that a man lives to-day doth enhance. 
The may-be for me, not the must-be ! Best flourish while flourish the flowers, 
And fall ere the frost falls. The dead, do they rest or arise with new powers ? 
Either way, well for them. Mine, meanwhile, be the cup of life's fulness to-night. 
And to-morrow . . . Well, time to consider " (he felt at the fruit). " What delight 
Of his birthright had Esau, when hungry ? To-day with its pottage is sweet. 
For a man cannot feed and be full on the faith of to-morrow's baked meat. 
Open ! open, my dark-eyed beguiler of darkness ! " 

Up rose to his knock, 
Light of foot, the lascivious Egyptian, and lifted the latch from the lock. 
And opened. And led in the prince to her chamber, and shook out her hair, 
Dark, heavy, and humid with odors ; her bosom beneath it laid bare. 
And sleek sallow shoulder ; and sloped back her face, as, when falls the slant South 
In wet whispers of rain, flowers bend back to catch it ; so she, with shut mouth 
Half-unfolding for kisses ; and sank, as they fell, 'twixt his knees, with a laugh, 
On the floor, in a flood of deep hair flung behind her full throat ; held him half 
Aloof with one large, languid arm, while the other uppropped, where she lay, 
Limbs flowing in fulness and lucid in suiface as waters at play. 
Though in firmness as slippery marble. Anon she sprang loose from his clasp. 
And whirled from the table a flagon of silver twined round by an asp 
That glittered, — rough gold and red rubies ; and poured him, and praised him, 

the wine 
WhercAvith she first brightened the moist lip that murmured, "Ha, fool ! art 

thou mine ? 
I am thine. This will last for an hour." Then, humming strange words of a song, 
Sung by maidens in Memphis the old, when they bore the Crowned Image along, 
Apples yellow and red from a basket with vine-leaves o'erlaid she 'gan take. 
And played with, peeled, tostthem, andcaught them, andbit them, foridleness' sake ; 
But the "rinds on the floor she flung from her, and laughed at the figures they made. 
As her foot pusht them this way and that way together. And "Look, fool," 

she said, 
" It is all sour fruit, this ! But those I fling from me, — see here by the stain ! — 
Shall carry the mark of my teeth in their flesh. Could they feel but the pain, 
my soul, how these teeth should go through them ! Fool, fool, what good gift 

dost thou bring ? 
For thee have I sweetened with cassia my chambers." " A gift for a king," 
Azariah laughed loud ; and tost to her the apple. " This comes from the Tree 
Of whose fruit whoso tastes lives forever. I care not. I give it to thee. 
Nay, witch ! 't is worth more than the shekels of gold thou hast charmed from 

my purse. 
Take it. Eat, and thank me for the meal, witch ! for Eve, thy sly mother, 

fared worse, 
thou white-toothed taster of apples ?" " Thou liest, fool ! " " Taste, then, and try. 
For the truth of the fruit 's in the eating. 'T is thou art the serpent, not I." 
And the strong man laughed loud as he pushed at her lip the life-apple. She caught 
And held it away from her, musing ; and muttered ..." Go to ! It is naught. 
Fool, why dost thou laugh ?" And he answered, " Because, witch, it tickles my 

brain 
Intensely to think that all we, that be Something while yet we remain. 



THE APPLE OF LIFE. 155 

We, the princes of people, — ay, even the King's self, — shall die in our day. 
And thou, that art Nothing, shalt sit on our graves, with our grandsons, and play." 
So he said, and laughed louder. 

But when, in the gray of the dawn, he was gone, 
And the wan light waxed large in the window, as she on her bed sat alone, 
With the fruit that, alluring her lip, in her hand lay untasted, perusing, 
Perplext, the gay gift of the Prince, the dark woman thereat fell a musing, 
And she thought ..." What is Life without Honor ? And what can the life that 

I live 
Give to me, I shall care to continue, not caring for aught it can give ? 
I, despising the fools that despise me, — a plaything not jjleasing myself, — 
Whose life, for the pelf that maintains it, must sell what is paid not by pelf ! 
I ? . . . the man called me Nothing. He said well. ' The great in their glory 

must go. ' 
And Avhy should I linger, whose life leadeth nowhere ? — a life which I know 
To name is to shame — struck, unsexed, by the world from its list of the lives 
Of the wolBen whose womanhood, saved, gets them leave to be mothers and wives. 
And the fancies of men change. And bitterly bought is the bread that I eat ; 
For, though purchased with body and spirit, when purchased 't is yet all unsweet." 
Her tears fell: they fell on the apple. She sighed . . . "Sour fruit, like the 

rest ! 
Let it go with the salt tears upon it. Yet life ... it were sweet if possessed 
In the power thereof, and the beauty. ' A gift for a king "... did he say ? 
Ay, a king's life is a life as it should be, — a life like the light of the day, 
Wherein all that liveth rejoiceth. For is not the King as the sun 
That shineth in heaven and seemeth both heaven and itself all in one ? 
Then to whom may this fruit, the life-giver, be worthily given ? Not me. 
Nor the fool Azariah that sold it for folly. The King ! only he, — 
Only he hath the life that 's worth living forever. Whose life, not alone 
Is the life of the King, but the life of the many made mighty in one. 
To the King will I carry this apple. And he (for the hand of a king 
Is a fountain of hope) in his handmaid shall honor the gift that I bring. 
And men for this deed shall esteem me, with Rahab by Israel praised, 
As first among those who, though lowly, their shame into honor have raised : 
Such honor as lasts when life goes, and, while life lasts, shall lift it above 
What, if loved by the many I loathe, must be loathed by the few I could love." 

, So she rose, and went forth through the city. And with her the apple she bore 
In her bosom : and stood 'mid the multitude, waiting therewith in the door 
Of the hall where the King, to give judgment, ascended at morning his throne : 
And, kneeling there, ci'ied, " Let the King live forever ! Behold, I am one 
Whom the vile of themselves count the vilest. But great is the grace of my lord. 
And now let my lord on his handmaid look down, and give ear to her word." 
Thereat, in the witness of all, she drew forth, and (uplifting her head) 
Showed the Apple of Life, which who tastes, tastes not death. " And this apple," 

she said, 
" Last night was delivered to me, that thy servant should eat, and not die. 
But 1 said to the soul of thy servant, ' Not so. For behold, what am I ? 
That the King, in his glory and gladness, should cease from the light of the sun, 
Whiles I, that am least of his slaves, in my shame and abasement live on.' 
For not sweet is the life of thy servant, unless to thy servant my lord 
Stretch his hand, and show favor. For surely the frown of a king is a sword, 
But the smile of the King is as honey that flows from the clefts of the rock. 
And his grace is as dew that from Horeb descends on the heads of the flock : 
In the King is the heart of a host : the King's strength is an army of men : 
And the wrath of the King is a lion that roareth by night from his den : 



156 THE APPLE OF LIFE. 

But as grapes from the vines of En-Gedi are favors that fall from his hands. 
And as towers on the hill-tops of Shenir the throne of King Solomon stands. 
And for this, it were well that forever the King, who is many in one, 
Should sit, to be seen through all time, on a throne 'twixt the moon and the sun ! 
For how shall one lose what he hath not ? Who hath, let him keep what he hath. 
Wherefore I to the King give this apple." 

Then great was King Solomon's wrath. 
And he rose, rent his garment, and cried, "Woman, whence came this apple to 

thee ? " 
But when he was 'ware of the truth, then his heart was awakened. And he 
Knew at once that the man who, erewhile, unawares coming to him, had brought 
That Apple of Life was, indeed, God's good Angel of Death. And he thought 
" In mercy, I doubt not, when man's eyes were opened, and made to see plain 
All the wrong in himself, and the wretchedness, God sent to close them again 
For man's sake, his last friend upon earth — Death, the servant of GoD, who is just. 
Let man's spirit to Him whence it cometh return, and his dust to the dust ! " 

Then the Apple of Life did King Solomon seal in an urn that was signed 
With the seal of Oblivion : and summoned the Spirits that walk in the wind 
Unseen on the summits of mountains, where never the eagle yet flew ; 
And these he commanded to bear far away, — out of reach, out of view, 
Out of hope, out of memory, — higher than Ararat buildeth his throne, 
In the Urn of Oblivion the Apple of Life. 

But on green jasper-stone 
Did the King write the story thereof for instruction. And Enoch, the seer, 
Coming afterward, searched out the meaning. And he that hath ears, let him heai: 



THE WANDERER. 



TO J. F. 



As, in the laiirel's mnrmnrous leaves 

'T was fabled, once, a Virgin dwelt ; 
Within the poet's page yet heaves 
The poet's Heart, and loves or grieves 
Or triumphs, as it felt. 

A hnman smrit here records 

The annals of its human strife. 
A human hand hath touched these chords. 
These songs may all be idle words : 
And yet — they once were life, 

I gave my harp to Memory. 

She sung of hope, when hope was young. 
Of youth, as youth no more may be ; 
And, since she sung of youth, to thee, 
Friend of my youth, she sung. 

For all youth seeks, all manhood needs. 

All youth and manhood rarely find : 
A strength more strong than codes or creeds, 
In lofty thoughts and lovely deeds 
Revealed to heart and mind ; 

A staff to stay, a star to guide ; 

A spell to soothe, a power to raise ; 
A faith by fortune firmly tried ; 
A judgment resolute to preside 
O'er days at strife with days. 

large in lore, in nature sound ! 

man to me, of all men, dear ! 
All these in thine my life hath found, 
And force to tread the rugged ground 
Of daily toil, with cheer. 

Accept — not these, the broken cries 

Of days receding far from me — 
But all the love that in them lies, 
The man's heart in the melodies. 
The man's heart honoring thee ! 

Sighing I sung ; for some sublime 

Emotion made my music jar : 

The forehead of this restless time 

Pales in a fervid, passionate clime, 

Lit by a changeful star ; 

And o'er the Age's threshold, traced 
In characters of hectic fire. 



The name of that keen, fervent-faced 
And toiling seraph, hath been placed, 
Which men have called Desire. 

But thou art strong where, even of old. 

The old heroic strength was rare. 
In high emotions self-controlled. 
And insight keen, but never cold. 
To lay all falsehood bare ; 

Despising all those glittering lies 

Which in these days can fool mankind ; 
B\it full of noble sympathies 
For what is genuinely wise. 
And beautiful, and kind. 

And thou wilt pardon all the much 

Of weakness which doth here abound. 
Till miisic, little prized as such. 
With thee find worth from one true touch 
Of nature in its sound. 

Though mighty spirits are no more, m 

Yet spirits of beauty still remain. 
Gone is the Seer that, by the shore 
Of lakes as limpid as his lore. 
Lived to one ceaseless strain 

And strenuous melody of mind. 
■ But one there rests that hath the power 
To charm the midnight moon, and bind 
All spirits of the sweet south-wind. 
And steal from every shower 

That sweeps green England cool and clear. 

The violet of tender song. 
Great Alfred ! long may England's ear 
His music fill, his name be dear 
To English bosoms long ! 

And one ... in sacred silence sheathed 

That name I keep, my verse would shame. 
The name my lips in prayer first breathed 
Was his : and prayer hath yet bequeathed 
Its silence to that name ; — 

Which yet an age remote shall hear, 

Borne on the fourfold wind sublime 
By Fame, where, with some faded year 
These songs shall sink, like leaflets sere, 
In avenues of Time. 



158 



THE WANDEKER. 



Love on my harp his finger lays ; 

His hand is held against the chords. 
My heart upon the music weighs, 
And, beating, hushes foolish praise 
From desultory words : 

And Childhood steals, with wistful grace, 

'Twixt him and me ; an infant hand 
Chides gently back the thoughts that chase 
The forward hour, and turns my face 
To that remembered land 

Of legend, and the Summer sky, 

And all the wild Welsh waterfalls, 
And haunts where he, and thou, and I 
Once wandered with the wandering Wye, 
And scaled the airy walls 

Of Chepstow, from whose ancient height 

We watched the liberal sun go down ; 

Then onward, through the gradxial night, 

Till, ere the moon was fully bright. 

We supped in Monmouth Town. 

And though, dear friend, thy love retains 

The choicest sons of song in fee. 
To thee not less I pour these strains, 
Knowing that in thy heart remains 
A little place for me. 

Floeehce, September 24, 1857. 



Nor wilt thou all forget the time 

Though it be past, in which together. 
On many an eve, with many a rliyme 
Of old and modern bards sublime 

We soothed the summer weather : 

And, citing all he said or sung 

With praise reserved for bards like him, 
Spake of that friend who dwells among 
The Apennine, and there hath strung 
A harp of Anakim ; 

Than whom a mightier master never 

Touched the deep chords of hidden things ; 
Nor error did from truth dissever 
With keener glance ; nor made endeavor 
To rise on bolder wings 

In those high regions of the soiil 

Where thought itself grows dim with awe. 
But now the star of eve hath stole 
Througli the deep sunset, and the wliole 
Of heaven begins to draw 

The darkness round me, and the dew. 

And my pale Muse doth fold her eyes. 
Adieu, my friend ; my guide, adieu ! 
May never niglit, 'twixt me and you. 
With thoughts less fond arise ! 

THE AUTHOR 



PEOLOGUE. 



PART I. 

Sweet are the rosy memories of the 
lips, 
That first kissed ours, albeit they kiss 
no more : 
Sweet is the sight of snnset-sailing ships, 
Although they leave us on a lonely 
shore : * 
Sweet are familiar songs, though Music 
dips 
Her hollow shell in Thought's forlorn- 

est wells ; 
And sweet, though sad, the sound of 
midnight bells, 
When the oped casement with the night- 
rain drips. 

There is a pleasure which is born of 

pain : 
The grave of all things hath its violet. 
Else why, through days which never come 

again, 



Eoams Hope with that strange longing, 
like Regret ? 
Why put the posy in the cold dead hand ? 
Why plant the rose above the lonely 

grave ? 
Why bring the corpse across the salt 
sea-wave ? 
Why deem the dead more near in native 
land? 

Thy name hath been a silence in my life 
So long, it falters upon language now, 
more to me than sister or than wife 
Once . . . and now — nothing ! It is 
hard to know 
That such things have been, and are not, 
and yet 
Life loiters, keeps a pulse at even meas- 
ure, 
And goes upon its business and its 
pleasure, 
And knows not all the depths of its re- 
gret. 



PROLOGUE. 



159 



Thou art not in tliy picture, my 
friend ! 
The years are sad and many since I 
saw thee, 
And seem with me to have survived their 
end. 
Far otherwise than thus did memory 
draw thee 
I ne'er shall know thee other than thou 
wast. 
Yet save, indeed, the same sad eyes 

of old, 
And that abundant hair's warm silken 
gold, 
Thou ai't changed, if this be like the look 
thou hast. 

Changed ! ^here the epitaph of all the 
years 
"Was sounded ! I am changed too. 
Let it be. 
Yet is it sad to know my latest tears 
Were faithful to a memory, — not to 
thee. 
Nothing is left us ! nothing — save the 
soul. 
Yet even the immortal in us alters 

too. 
"Who is it his old sensations can re- 
new? 
Slowly the seas are changed. Slow ages 
roll 

The mountains to a level. Nature 
sleeps, 
And dreams her dream, and to new 
work awakes 
After a hundred years are in the deeps. 
But Man is changed before a wiinkle 
breaks 
The brow's sereneness, or the curls are 
gray. 
We stand within the flux of sense : 

the near 
And far change place : and we see 
nothing clear. J* 

That's false to-morrow which was true 
to-day. 

Ah, could the memory cast her spots, 
as do 
The snake's brood theirs in .spring ! 
and be once more 
Wholly renewed, to dwell i' the time 
that 's new. 
With no reiterance o£ those pangs of 
yore. 



Peace, peace ! My wild song will go 
wandering 
Too wantonly, down paths a private 

pain 
Hath trodden bare. What was it 
jarred the strain ? 
Some crusht illusion, left with crumpled 
wing 

Tangled in Music's web of twined 
strings — • 

That started that -false note, and 
cracked the tune 
In its beginning. Ah, forgotten things 
Stumble back strangely ! And the 
ghost of June 
Stands by December's fire, cold, cold ! 
and puts 
The last spark out. 

How could I sing aright 
With those old airs haunting me all 
the night 
And those old steps that sound when 
daylight shuts ? 

For back she comes, and moves reproach- 
fully. 
The misla'ess of my moods, and looks 
bereft 
(Cruel to the last !) as though 't were I, 
not she, ^ 

That did the wrong, and brokM|ie 
spell, and left 
Memory comfortless. 

Away ! away ! 
Phantoms, about whose brows the 

bindweed clings. 
Hopeless regret ! 

In thinking of these things 
Some men have lost their minds, and 
others may. 

Yet, 0, for one deep draught in this dull 
hour ! 
One deep, deep draught of the depart- 
ed time ; 
0, for one brief strong pulse of ancient 
power, 
To beat and breathe through all the 
valves of rhyme ! 
Thou, Memory, with the downward eyes, 
that art 
The cupbearer of gods, pour deep and 

long, 
Brim all the vacant chalices of song 
With health ! Droop down thine urn. 
I hold my heart. 



IQQ THE WANDERER. 

One draught of what I shall not taste 



again, 
Save when my brain with thy dark 
wine is hrimmed, — 
One draught ! and then straight onward, 
spite of pain. 
And spite of all things changed, with 
gaze undimmed. 
Love's footsteps through the waning Past 
to explore 
Undaunted ; and to carve, in the wan 

light 
Of Hope's last outposts, on Song's ut- 
most height 
The sad resemblance of an hour no more. 

Midnight, and love, and youth, and 
Italy ! 
Love in the land where love most lovely 
seems ! 
Land of my love, though I be far from thee. 
Lend, for love's sake, the light of thy 
moonbeams. 
The spirit of thy cypress-groves, and all 
Thy dark-eyed beauty, for a little while 
To my desire. Yet once more let her 
smile 
Fall o'er me : o'er me let her long hair 
faU, 

Tha lady of my life, whose lovely eyes 
Reaming, or waking, lure me. I shall 
know her 
By Love's own planet o'erherin the skies. 
And Beauty's blossom in the grass be- 
low her ! 
Dreaming, or waking, in her soft, sad 
gaze 
Let my heart bathe, as on that fated 

night 
I saw her, when my life took in the 
sight 
Of her sweet face for all its nights and 
days. 

Her winsome head was bare : and she 
had twined 
Through its rich curls wild red anemo- 
nes ; 
One stream of her soft hair strayed un- 
confined 
Down her ripe cheek, and shadowed 
her deep eyes. 
The bunch of sword-grass fell from her 
loose hand. 
Her modest foot beneath its snowy 
skirt 



Peeped, and the golden daisy was not 
hurt. 

Stately, yet slight, she stood, as fairies 
stand. 

Under the blessed darkness unreproved 
We were alone, in that blest hour of 
time. 
Which tirst revealed to us how much we 
loved, 
'Neath the thick starlight. The young 
night sublime 
Hung trembling o'er us. At her feet I 
knelt, 
And gazed up from her feet into her 

eyes. 
Her face was bowed : we breathed each 
other's sighs : 
We did not speak : not move: we looked: 
we felt. 

The night said not a word. The breeze 
was dead. 
The leaf lay without whispering on the 
tree. 
As I lay at her feet. Droopt was her 
head : 
One hand in mine : and one still pen- 
sively 
Went wandering through my hair. We 
were together. 
How? Where? What matter? Some- 

where in a dream. 
Drifting, slow drifting, down a wizard 
stream : 
Whither ? Together : then what matter 
whither ? 

It was enough for me to clasp her hand : 
To blend with her love-looks my own : 
no more. 
Enough (with thoughts like ships that 
cannot land, 
Blown by faint winds about a magic 
shore) 
To realize, in each mysterious feeling, 
The droop of the warm cheek so near 

my own : 
The cool white arm about my shoulder 
thrown : 
Those exquisite frail feet, where I was 
kneeling. 

How little know they life's divinest 
bliss. 
That know not to possess and yet re- 
frain ! 



PROLOGUE. 



161 



Let the young Psyche roam, a fleeting 
kiss : — 
Grasp it — a few poor grains of dust 
remain. 
See how those floating flowers, the but- 
terflies, 
Hover the garden through, and take 

no root ! 
Desire forever hath a flying foot. 
Free pleasure comes and goes beneath the 
skies. 

Close not thy hand upon the innocent 
Joy 
That trusts itself within thy reach. It 
may, 
Or may not, linger. Thou canst but de- 
stroy* 
The winged wanderer. Let it go or 
stay. 
Love thou the rose, yet leave it on its 
stem. 
Think ! Midas starved by turning all 

to gold. 
Blessed are those that spare, and that 
withhold. 
Because the whole world shall be trusted 
then. 

The foolish Faun pursues the unwilling 
]N'}Tnph 
That culls her flowers beside the preci- 
pice. 
Or dips her shining ankles in the lymph : 
But, just when she must perish or be 
his, 
Heaven puts an arm out. She is safe. 

The shore 
. Gains some new fountain ; or the lilied 
lawn 
A rarer sort of rose : but, ah, poor 
Faun ! 
To thee she shall be changed forevermore. 

Chase not too close the fading rapture. 
Leave 
To Love his long auroras, slowly seen. 
Be ready to release, as to receive. 
Deem those the nearest, soul to soul, 
between 
Whose lips yet lingers reverence on a 
sigh. 
Judge what thy sense can reach not, 

most thine own, 
If once thy soul hath seized it. The 
unknown 
Is life to love, religion, poetry. 
11 



The moon had set. There was not any 
light. 
Save of the lonely legioned watch-stars 
pale 
In outer air, and what by fits made 
bright 
Hot oleanders in a rosy vale 
Searched by the lamping fly, whose little 
spark 
Went in and out, like passion's bash- 
ful hope. 
Meanwhile the sleepy globe began to 
slope 
A ponderous shoulder sunward through 
the dark. 

And the night passed in beauty like a 
dream. 
Aloof in those dark heavens paused 
Destiny, 
With her last star descending in the 
gleam 
Of the cold morrow, from the emptied 
sky. 
The hour, the distance from her old 
self, all 
The novelty and loneness of the place, 
Had left a lovely awe on that fair 
face. 
And all the land grew strange and 
magical. 

As droops some billowing cloud to the 
crouched hill. 
Heavy with all heaven's tears, for all 
earth's care, 
She drooped unto me, without force or 
will. 
And sank upon my bosom, murmur- 
ing there 
A woman's inarticulate, passionate words. 
moment of all moments upon earth ! 
life's supreme ! How worth, how 
wildly worth, 
Whole worlds of flame, to know this 
world affords 

What even Eternity cannot restore ! 
When all the ends of life take hands, 
and meet 
Round centres of sweet fire. Ah, never 
more. 
Ah never, shall the bitter with the 
sweet 
Be mingled so in the pale after-years ! 
One hour of life immortal spirits pos- 



162 



THE WANDERER. 



This drains the world, and leaves but 
weariness, 
And parching passion, and perplexing 
tears. 

Sad is it, that we cannot even keep 
That hour to sweeten life's last toil : 
but Youth 
Grasps all, and leaves us : and, when 
we would weep. 
We dare not let our tears flow lest, in 
truth, 
They fall upon our work which must be 
done. 
And so we bind up our torn hearts 

from breaking : 
Our eyes from weeping, and our brows 
from aching : 
And follow the long pathway all alone. 

moment of sweet peril, perilous sweet ! 
When woman joins herself to man ; 
and man 
Assumes the full-lived woman, to com- 
plete 
The end of life, since human life be- 
gan ! 
When in the perfect bliss of union. 
Body and soul triumphal rapture 

claim. 
When there 's a spirit in blood, in 
spirit a flame. 
And earth's lone hemispheres glow, fused 
in one ! 

Rare moment of rare peril ! . . . The 
bard's song, 
The mystic's musing fancy. Did there 
ever 
Two perfect souls, in perfect forms, be- 
long 
Perfectly to each other ? Never, never ! 
Perilous wei'e such moments, for a touch 
Might mar their clear perfection. Ex- 
quisite 
Even for the peril of their frail delight. 
Such things man feigns : such seeks : 
but finds not such. 

No ! for 't is in ourselves our love doth 
grow : 
And, when our love is fully risen 
within us. 
Round the first object doth it overflow. 
Which, be it fair or foul, is sure to 
win us 



Out of ourselves. We clothe with our 
own nature 
The man or woman its first want doth 

find. 
The leafless prop with our own buds 
we bind. 
And hide in blossoms : fill the empty 
feature 

With our own meanings : even prize de- 
fects 
Which keep the mark of our own 
choice upon 
The chosen : bless each fault whose spot 
protects 
Our choice from possible confusion 
With the woild's other creatures : we 
believe them 
What most we wish, the more we find. 

they are not : 
Our choice once made, with our own 
choice we war not : 
We worship them for what ourselves we 
give them. 

Doubt is this otherwise. . . . When fate 
removes 
The unworthy one from our reluctant 
arms. 
We die with that lost love to other loves, 
And turn to its defects from other 
charms. 
And nobler forms, where moved those 
forms, may move 
With lingering looks : our cold fare- 
wells we wave them. 
We loved our lost loves for the love 
we gave them. 
And not for anything they gave our 
love. 

Old things return not as they were in 
Time. 
Trust nothing to the recompense of 
Chance, 
Which deals with novel forms. This 
falling rhyme 
Fails from the flowery steeps of old 
romance, 
Down that abyss which Memory droops 
above. 
And, gazing out of hopelessness down 

there, 
I see the shadow creep through Youth's 
gold hair 
And white Death watching over red- 
lipped Love. 



PROLOGUE. 



163 



PART II. 

What lives on with 



Thb soul lives cm, 
the soul ? 
Glimpses of something better than her 
best ; 
Truer than her truest : motion to a pole 
Beyond the zones of this orb's dimness 
guest : fc 

And (since life dies not with the first '1 work my work. AU its results are 



dead bliss) 

Blind notions of some meaning moved 
through time, 

Some purpose in the deeps of the sub- 
lime, 
That stirs a pulse here, could we find 
out this. 

"Visions and noises rouse us. I discern 
Even in change some comfort, Be- 
loved ! 
Suns rise and set ; stars vanish and re- 
turn ; 
But never quite the same. And life 
is moved 
Toward new experience. Every eve and 
morn 
Descends and springs with increase on 

the world. 
And what is death but life in this life 
furled ? 
The outward cracks, the inward life is 
born. 

Friends pass beyond the borders of this 
Known, 
And draw our thoughts up after them. 
We say 
"They are : but their relations now are 
done 
With Nature, and the plan of night 
and day." 
If never mortal man from this world's 
light 
Did pass away to that surrounding 

gloom, 
'T were well to doubt the life beyond 
the tomb ; 
But now is Truth's dark side revealed to 
sight. 

Father of spirits ! Thine all secrets be. 

I bless Thee for the light Thou hast 

revealed, 

And that Thou hidest. Part of me I see, 

And part of me Thy wisdom hath 

concealed, 



Till the new life divulge it. Lord, 
imbue nie 
With will to work in this diurnal 

sphere. 
Knowing myself my life's day-laborer 
here, 
Where evening brings the daj^'s work's 
wages to me. 



Thine. 

I know the loyal deed becomes a fact 
Which Thou wilt deal with : nor will 1 
repine 
Although I miss the value of the act. 
Thou carest for the creatures : and the 
end 
Thou seest. The world unto Thy. 
y. hands I leave : 
<And to Thy hands my life. I will not 
grieve 
Because I know not all Thou dost in- 
tend. / / 

Something I know. Oft, shall it come 
about 
When every heart is fuU with hope for 
man 
The horizon straight is darkened, and a 
doubt 
Clouds all. The work the world so 
well began 
Wastes down, and by some deed of shame 
is finished. 
Ah yet, I will not be dismayed : nor 

though 
The good cause flourish fair, and Free- 
dom ilow 
All round, my watch beyond shall be 
diminished. 

What seemed the triumph of the Fiend 
at length 
Might be the effort of some dying 
Devil, 
Permitted to put forth his fullest strength 
To lose it all forever. While, the evil 
Whose cloven crest our pseans float above 
Might have been less than what un- 
noticed lies 
'Neath our rejoicings. Which of us is 
wise? 
We know not what we mourn : nor why 
we love. 

But teach me, Omnipotent, since .strife, 
Sorrow, and pain are but occun-ences 



164 



THE WANDERER. 



Of that condition through which flows 
my life, 
Not part of me, the immortal, whom 
distress 
Cannot retain, to vex not thought for 
these : 
But to be patient, bear, forbear, re- 
strain, 
And hold my spirit pure above my 
pain. 
No star that looks through life's dark 
lattices, 

But what gives token of a world else- 
where. 
I bless Thee for the loss of all things 
here 
Which proves the gain to be : the hand 
of Care 
That shades the eyes from earth, and 
beckons near 
The rest which sweetens all : the shade 
Time throws 
On Love's pale countenance, that he 

may gaze 
Across Eternity for better days 
Unblinded ; and the wisdom of all woes : 

I bless Thee for the life Thou gavest, 
albeit 
It hath known sorrow : for the sorrow's 
self 
I bless Thee ; and the gift of wings to 
flee it, 
Led by this spirit of song, — this 
ministering elf, 
That to sweet uses doth unwind my pain. 
And spin his palace out of poison- 
flowers, 
To float, an impulse, through the live- 
long hours, 
From sky to sky, on Fancy's glittering 
skein. 

Aid me, sweet Spirit, escaping from the 
throng 
Of those that raise the Corybantic 
shout. 
And barbarous, dissonant cymbal's clash 
prolong, 
In fear lest any hear the God cry out. 
Now that the night resumes her bleak 
retreat 
In these dear lands, footing the un- 

wandered waste 
Of Loss, to walk in Italy, and taste 
A little while of what was once so sweet. 



PART III. 

Ntjese of an ailing world, beloved Night! 
Our days are fretful children, weak to 
bear 
A little pain : they wrangle, wound, and 
fight 
Each other, weep, and sicken, and de- 
spair. 
Thou, with thy motherly hand that 
healeth care. 
Stillest our little noise : rebukest one, 
Soothest another : blamest tasks un- 
done: 
Refreshest jaded hope ; and teachest " 
prayer. 

Thine is the mother's sweet hush-hush, 
that stills 
The flutterings of a plaintive heart to 
rest. 
Thine is the mother's medicining hand 
that fills 
Sleep's opiate : thine the mother's pa- 
tient breast : 
Thine, too, the mother's mute reproach- 
ful eyes. 
That gently look our angry noise to 

shame 
When all is done : we dare not meet 
their blame : 
They are so silent, and they are so wise. 

Thou that from this lone casement, while 
I write. 
Seen in the shadowy upspring, swift 
dost post 
Without a sound the polar star to light. 
Not idly did the Chaldee shepherds 
boast 
By thy stern lights man's life aright to 
read. 
All day he hides himself from his own 

heart, 
Swaggers and struts, and plays his 
foolish part : 
Thou only seest him as he is indeed. 

For who could feign false worth, or give 
the nod 
Among his fellows, or this dust dis- 
own, 
With nought between him and those s 
lights of God, 
Left awfully alone with the Alone ? 
Who vaunt high words, whose least 
heart's beating jars 



PROLOGUE. 



165 



The httsh of sentinel worlds that take 

mute note 
Of all beneath yon judgment plains 

remote ? — 
A unirersal cognizance of stars ! 

And yet, gentlest angel of the Lord ! 
Thou leadest by the hand the artisan 
Away from work. Thou biingest, on 
ship- board, 
When gleam the dead-lights, to the 
lonely man 
That turns the wheel, a blessed memory 
Of apple-blossoms, and the mountain 

vales 
About his little cottage in Green "Wales, 
Miles o'er the ridges of the rolling sea. 

Thou bearest divine forgiveness amongst 
men. 
Relenting Anger pauses by the bed 
Where Sleep looks so like Death. The 
absent then 
Return ; and Memory beckons back 
the dead. 
Thou helpest home (thy balmy hand it is !) 
The hard-worked husband to the pale- 
cheeked wife. 
And hushest up the poor day's house- 
hold strife 
On marriage pillows, with a good-night 
kiss. 

Thou bringest to the wretched and forlorn 
Woman, that down the glimmering 
by-street hovers, 
A dream of better days : the gleam of 
corn 
About her father's field, and her first 
lover's 
Grave, long forgotten in the green 
churchyard : 
Voices, long-stUled, from purer hours, 

before 
The rushlight, Hope, went out ; and, 
through the door 
Of the lone garret, when the nights were 
hard. 

Hunger, the wolf, put in his paw, and 
found her 
Sewing the winding-sheet of Youth, 
alone ; 
And griped away the last cold comforts 
round her : — 
Her little bed ; the mean clothes she 
had on : 



Her mother's picture — the sole saint 
she knew : 
Till nothing else w^as left for the last 

crust 
But the poor body, and the heart's 
young trust 
In its own courage : and so these went 
too. 

Home from the heated Ball flusht Beauty 
stands. 
Musing beside her costly couch alone : 
But while she loosens, faint, with jew- 
elled hands. 
The diamonds from her dark hair, one 
by one. 
Thou whisperest in her empty heart the 
name 
Of one that died heart-broken for her 

sake 
Long since, and all at once the coiled 
hell-snake 
Turns stinging in his egg, — and pomp 
is shame. 

Thou comest to the man of many pleas- 
ures 
Without a joy, that, soulless, plays 
for souls. 
Whose life 's a squandered heap of plun- 
dered treasures. 
While, listless loitering by, the mo- 
ment rolls 
From nothing on to nothing. From the 
shelf 
Perchance he takes a cynic book. 

Perchance 
A dead flower stains the leaves. The 
old romance 
Returns. Ere morn, perchance, he shoots 
himself. 

Thou comest, with a touch of scorn, to 
me. 
That o'er the broken wine-cup of my 
youth 
Sit brooding here, and pointest silently 
To thine unchanging stars. Yes ! yes ! 
in truth, 
They seem more reachless now than when 
of yore 
Above the promist land I watcht them 

shine, 
And all among their cryptic serpentine 
Went climbing Hope, new planets to ex- 
plore. 



166 



THE WAIfDEEER. 



Not for the flesli that fades — although 
decay 
This thronged metropolis of sense o'er- 
spread : 
Not for the joys of youth, that fleet away 
"When the wise swallows to the south 
are fled ; 
Not that, beneath the law which fades 
the flower, 
An earthly hope should wither in the 

cells 
Of this poor earthly house of life, 
where dwells 
Unseen the solitary Thinking-Power ; 

But that where fades the flower the weed 
should flourish ; 
For all the baffled efforts to achieve 
The imperishable from the things that 
perish, 
For broken vows, and weakened wiU, 
I grieve. 
Knowing that night of all is creeping on 
Wherein can no man work, I sorrow most 
For what is gained, and not for what 
is lost ; 
Nor mourn alone what 's undone, but 
what 's done. 

What light, from yonder windless cloud 
released. 
Is widening up the peaks of yon black 
hills ? 
It is the full moon in the mystic east, 
Whose coming half the unravisht 
darkness fills 
Till all among the ribbed light cloudlets 
pale. 
From shore to shore of sapphrine deeps 

divine. 
The orbed splendor seems to slide and 
shine 
Aslope the rolling vapors in the vale. 

Abroad the stars' majestic light is flung, 
And they fade brightening up the steps 
of Night. 
Cold mysteries of the midnight ! that, 
among 
The sleeps and pauses of this world, 
in sight. 
Reveal a doubtful hope to wild Desire ; 
Which, hungering for the sources of 

the suns, 
Makes moan beyond the blue Septen- 
trions, 
And spidery Saturn in his webs of fire ; 



Whether the unconscious destinies of 
man 
Move with the motions of your 
sphered lights. 
And his brief course, foredoomed ere he 
began, 
Your shining symbols iixed in reach- 
less heights, 
Or whether all the purpose of his pain 
Be shut in his wild heart and feverish 

will. 
He knows no more than this : — that 
you ai-e still, 
But he is moved : he goes, but you 
remain. 

Fooled was the human vanity that wrote 
Strange names in astral fire on yonder 
pole. 
Who and what were they — in what age 
remote — 
That scrawled weak boasts on yon 
sidereal scroll ? 
Orion shines. Now seek for Nimrod. 
Where ? 
Osiris is a fable, and no more : 
But Sirius burns as brightly as of 
yore. 
There is no shade on Berenice's hair. 

You that outlast the Pyramids, as they 
Outlast their founders, tell us of our 
doom ! 
You that see Love depart, and Error 
stray, 
And Genius toiling at a splendid tomb, 
Like those Egyptian slaves : and Hope 
deceived : 
And Strength still failing when the 

goal is near : 
And Passion parcht : and Rapture 
claspt to Fear : 
And Trust betrayed : and Memory be- 
reaved ! 

Vain question ! Shall some other voice 
declare 
What my soul knows not of herself ? 
Ah no ! 
Dumb patient Monster, grieving every- 
where. 
Thou answerest nothing which I did 
not know. 
The broken fragments of ourselves we 
seek 
In alien forms, and leave our lives 
behind. 



PROLOGUE. 



167 . 



In our own memories our graves we 
find. 
And when we lean upon our hearts, 
they break. 

I seem to see 'mid yonder glimmering 
spheres 
Another world : — not that our prayers 
record, 
"Wherein our God shall wipe away all 
tears, 
And never voice of mourning shall be 
heard ; 
But one between the sunset and moon- 
rise : 
Near night, yet neighboring day : a 

twiiiOand, 
And peopled by a melancholy band — 
The souls that loved and failed — with 
hopel&s eyes ; 

More like that Hades of the antique 
creeds ; — 
A land of vales forlorn, where Thought 
shall roam 
Eegretful, void of wholesome human 
deeds, 
An endless, homeless pining after 
home. 
To which all sights and sounds shall 
minister 
In vain : — white roses glimmering all 

alone 
In an evening light, and, with his 
haunting tone. 
The advancing twilight's shard-bom 
trumpeter. 

A world like this world's worst come 
back again ; 
Still groaning 'neath the burthen of 
a Fall : 
Eternal longing with eternal pain, 
Want without hope, and memory sad- 
dening all. 
All congregated failure and despair 
Shall wander there, through some old 

maze of wrong : — 
Ophelia drowning in her own death- 
song. 
And First- Love strangled in his golden 
hair. 

Ah well, for those that overcome, no 
doubt 
The crowns are ready ; strength is to 
the strong. 



But we — but we — weak hearts that 
grope about 
In darkness, with a lamp that fails 
along 
The lengthening midnight, dying ere 
we reach 
The bridal doors ! 0, what for us 

remains. 
But mortal eifort with immortal pains ? 
And yet — God breathed a spirit into 
each ! 

I know this miracle of the soul is 
more 
Than all the marvels that it looks 
upon. 
And we are kings whose heritage was 
before 
The spheres, and owes no homage to 
the sun. 
In my own breast a mightier world I 
bear 
Than all those orbs on orbs about me 

rolled ; 
Nor are you kinglier, stars, though 
throned on gold. 
And given the empires of the midnight- 
air. 

For T, too, am undying as you are, 
teach me calm, and teach me self- 
control : — 
To sphere my spirit like yon fixed star 
That moves not ever in the utmost 
pole. 
But whirls, and sleeps, and turns all 
heaven one way. 
So, strong as Atlas, should the spirit 

stand. 
And turn the great globe round in her 
right hand. 
For recreation of her sovereign sway. 

Ah yet ! — For aU, I shall not use my 
power, 
Nor reign within the light of my own 
home, 
Till speculation fades, and that strange 
hour 
Of the departing of the soul is come ; 
Till all this wrinkled husk of care 
falls by. 
And my immortal nature stands up- 
right 
In her perpetual morning, and the 
light 
Of suns that set not on Eternity ! 



168 



THE WANDEEEK. 



BOOK I.-II:^ ITALY. 



THE MAGIC LAND. 

By woodland belt, by ocean bar, 

The full south breeze our foreheads 
fanned. 

And, under many a yellow star, 
We dropped into the Magic Land. 

There, every sound and every sight 
Means more than sight or sound else- 
where ; 

Each twilight star a twofold light ; 
Each rose a double redness, there. 

By ocean bar, by woodland belt, 
Our silent course a syren led. 

Till dark in dawn began to melt. 

Through the wild wizard-work o'er- 
head. 

A murmur from the violet vales ! 

A glory in the goblin dell ! 
There Beauty all her breast unveils, 

And Music pours out all her shell. 

We watched, toward the land of dreams, 
The fair moon draw the murmuring 
main ; 
A single thread of silver beams 
Was made the monster's rippling 
chain. 

We heard far off the syren's song ; 

We caught the gleam of sea-maid's hair. 
The glimmering isles and rocks among, 

We moved through sparkling purple 



Then Morning rose, and smote from far. 
Her eltin harps o'er land and sea ; 

And woodland iDelt, and ocean bar. 
To one sweet note, sighed " Italy ! " 

DESIRE. 

The golden Planet of the Occident 
Warm from his bath comes up, i' the 
rosy air, 
And you may tell which way the Day- 
light went, 
Only by iis last footsteps shining 
there : 



For now he dwells 

Sea-deep o' the other shore of the world, 
And winds himself in the pink-mouthed 

shells ; 
Or, with his dusky, sun-dyed Priest, 
Walk s in the gardens of the gorgeous East ; 
Or hides in Indian hills ; or saileth 
where 
Floats, curiously curled. 
Leagues out of sight and scent of spicy 

trees. 
The cream-white nautilus on sapphrine 
seas. 

But here the Night from the hill-top 
yonder 
Steals all alone, nor yet too soon ; 
I have sighed for, and sought for, her ; 
sadder and fonder 
(All through the lonely and lingering 
noon) 
Than a maiden that sits by the lattice to 
ponder 
On vows made in vain, long since, 
under the moon. 
Her dusky hair she hath shaken free, 

And her tender eyes are wild with love ; 
And her balmy bosom lies bare to me. 
She hath lighted the seven sweet Plei- 
ads above, 
She is breathing over the dreaming sea. 
She is murmuring low in the cedar 

grove ; 
She hath put to sleep the moaning dove 
In the silent cypress-tree. 

And there is no voice nor whisper, — 
No voice nor whisper. 

In the hillside olives all at rest, 
Underneath blue-lighted Hes])er, 

Sinking, slowly, in the liquid west : 
For the night's heart knoweth best 
Love by silence most exprest. 
The nightingales keep mute 
Each one his fairy flute, 
Where the mrite stars look down, 
And the laurels close the green seaside : 
Only one amorous lute 
Twangs in the distant town. 
From some lattice opened wide : 
The climbing rose and vine are here, are 
there. 



IN ITALY. 



169 



On the terrace, around, above me : 
The lone Ledrean* lights from you en- 
chanted air 
Look down upon my spirit, like a spir- 
it's eyes that love me. 

How beautiful, at night, to muse on the 
mountain heiglit, 
Moated in purple air, and all alone ! 
How beautiful, at night, to look into the 
light 
Of loving eyes, when loving lips lean 
down unto our own ! 
But there is no hand in mine, no hand 
in mine, 
Nor any tender cheek against me prest : 
stars thay^'er me shine, I pine, I pine, 
I pine. 
With hopeless fancies hidden in an 
ever-hungering breast ! 

where, where is she that should be 
here, 
The spirit my spirit dreameth ? 
With the passionate eyes, so deep, so 
dear. 
Where a secret sweetness beameth ? 
sleepeth she, with her soft gold hair 
Streaming over the fragrant pillow, 
And a rich dream glowing in her ripe 
cheek, 
Far away, I know not where, 
By lonely shores, where the tumbling 
billow 
Sounds all night in an emerald creek ? 

Or doth she lean o'er the casement stone 

When the day's dull noise is done with, 
• And the sceptred spirit remounts alone 

Into her long-usurped throne, 
By the stairs the stars are won with ? 

Hearing the white owl call 
Where the river draws through the 
meadows below. 

By the beeches brown, and the broken 
wall. 
His silvery, seaward waters, slow 

To the ocean bounding all : 
With, here a star on his glowing breast. 

And, there a lamp down-streaming, 
And a musical motion towards the west 

Where the long white cliffs are gleam- 



" How oft, unwearied, have we spent the 
nights. 
Till the Ledsean stars, so famed for love, 
Wondered at us Irom above." — Cowley. 



While, far in the moonlight, lies at rest 
A great ship, asleep and dreaming ? 

Or doth she linger yet 

Among her sisters and brothers. 
In the chamber where happy faces are 
met. 
Distinct from all the others ? 
As my star up there, be it never so bright, 

No other star resembles. 
Doth she steal to the window, and strain 

her sight 
(While the pearl in her warm hair trem- 
bles) 
Over the dark, the distant night, 
Feeling something changed in her home 
yet; 
That old songs have lost their old de- 
light, 
And the true soul is not come yet ? 
Till the nearest star in sight 
Is drowned in a tearful light. 

I would that I were nigh her, 
Wherever she rest or rove ! 

My spirit waves as a spiral fire 
In a viewless wind doth move. 

Go forth, alone, go forth, wild-winged 
Desire, 
Thou art the bird of Jove, 

That broodest lone by the Olympian 
throne ; 

And strong to bear the thunders which 
destroy. 

Or fetch the ravisht, flute-playing Phry- 
gian boy ; 

Go forth, across the world, and find my 
love ! 



FATALITY. 

I HAVE seen her, with her golden hair, 
And her exquisite primrose face, 
And the violet in her eyes ; 
And my heart received its own despair — 
The thrall of a hopeless grace. 
And the knowledge of how youth 
dies. 

Live hair afloat with snakes of gold, 
And a throat as white as snow, 
And a stately figure and foot ; 
And that faint pink smile, so sweet, so 
cold, 
Like a wood anemone, closed below 
The shade of an ilex root. 



170 



THE WANDERER. 



And her delicate milk-white hand in 
mine, 
And her pensive voice in my ear, 
And her eyes downcast as we speak. 
I am filled with a rapture, vague and fine ; 
For there has fallen a sparkling tear 
Over her soft, pale cheek. 

And I know that all is hopeless now. 
And that which might have been, 
Had she only waited a year or two, 
Is turned to a wild regret, I know, 
Which will haunt as both, whatever 
the scene, 
And whatever the path we go. 

Meanwhile, for one moment, hand in hand, 
We gaze on each other's eyes ; 
And the red moon rises above us ; 
We linger with love in the lovely land, — 
Italy with its yearning skies, 
And its wiid white stars that love us. 



A YISIOK 

The hour of Hesperus ! the hour when 
feeling 
Grows likest memory, and the full 
heart swells 
With pensive pleasure to the mellow 
pealing 
Of mournful music upon distant bells : 
The hour when it seems sweetest to be 
loved, 
And saddest to have loved in days no 

more. 
love, life, lovely land of yore. 
Through which, erewhile, these weary 
footsteps roved. 

Was it a vision ? Or Irene, sitting, 
Lone in her chamber, on her snowy 
bed. 
With listless fingers, lingeringly unknit- 
ting 
Her silken bodice ; and, with bended 
head, 
Hiding in warm hair, half-way to her 
knee, 
Her pearl-pale shoulder, leaning on 

one ai'm. 
Athwart the darkness, odorous and 
warm, 
To watch the low, full moon set, pen- 
sively ? 



A fragrant lamp burned dimly in the room, 
With scarce a gleam in either looking- 
glass. 
The mellow moonlight, through the deep- 
blue gloom. 
Did all along the dreamy chamber pass, 
As though it were a little toucht with awe 
(Being new-come into that quiet place 
In such a quiet way) at the strange 
grace 
Of that pale lady, and what else it saw ; — 

Rare flowers : narcissi ; irises, each 
crowned ; 
Red oleander blossoms ; hyacinths 
Flooding faint fragrance, richly curled 
all round, 
Corinthian, cool columnar flowers on 
plinths ; 
Waxen camelias, white and crimson ones ; 
And amber lilies, and the regal rose, 
Which for the breast of queens full- 
scornful grows ; 
AU pinnacled in urns of carven bronze : 

Tables of inwrought stone, true Floren- 
tine, — 
Olympian circles thronged with Mer- 
curies, 
Minervas, little Junos dug i' the green 
Of ruined Rome ; and Juno's own rich eyes 
Vivid on peacock plumes Sidonian : 
A ribboned lute, young Music's cradle : 

books, 
Vellumed and claspt : and with be- 
wildered looks. 
Madonna's picture, — the old smile 
grown wan. 

From bloomed thickets, firefly-lamped, 

beneath 

The terrace, fluted cool the nightingale. 

In at the open window came the breath 

Of many a balmy, dim blue, dreaming 

vale. 

At intervals the howlet's note came clear. 

Fluttering dark silence through the 

cypress grove ; 
An infant breeze from the elf-land of 
Love, 
Lured by the dewy hour, crept, lisping, 



And now is all the night her own, to 
make it 
Or grave or gay with throngs of wak- 
ing dreams. j / 



IN ITALY. 



171 



Now grows her heart so ripe, a sigh 
might shake it 
To sliowers of fruit, all golden as be- 
seems 
Hesperian growth. Why not, on nights 
like this, 
Should Daphne out from yon green 

laurel slip ? 
A Dryad from the ilex, with white hip 
Quivered and thonged to hunt with Ar- 
temis ? 

To-night, what wonder were it, while 
such shadows 
Are taking up such shapes on moonlit 
mountains. 
Such star-flies kindling o'er low emerald 
meaiiows. 
Such voices floating out of hillside 
foimtains. 
If some full face should from the win- 
dow greet her. 
Whose eyes should be new planetary 

lights, 
Whose voice a well of liquid love- 
delights. 
And to the distance sighingly entreat 
her? 



EROS. 

What wonder that I loved her thus, 
that night ? 

The Immortals know each other at first 
sight. 

And Love is of them. 

In the fading light 

Of that delicious eve, whose stars even yet 
• Gild the long dreamless nights, and can- 
not set. 

She passed me, through the silence : all 
her hair. 

Her waving, warm, bright hair neglect- 
fully 

Poured round her snowy throat as with- 
out care 

Of its own beauty. 

And when she turned on me 

The sorrowing light of desolate eyes di- 
vine, 

I knew in a moment what our lives must 
be 

Henceforth. It lightened on me then 
and there, 

How she was irretrievably all mine, 

I hers, — through time, become eternity. 



It could not ever have been otherwise, 
Gazing into those eyes. 

And if, before I gazed on them, my soul, 
Oblivious of her destiny, had followed, 
In days forever silent, the control 
Of any beauty less divinely hallowed 
Than that upon her beautiful white, 

brows, 
(The serene summits of all earthly sweet, 

ness ! ) 
Straightway the records of all other vows 
Of idol- worship faded silently 
Out of the folding leaves of memory, 
Forever and forever ; and my heart be- 
came 
Pure white at once, to keep in its com- 
pleteness. 
And perfect purity, 
Her mystic name. 



INDIAN LOVE-SONG. 

My body sleeps : my heart awakes. 

My lips to breathe thy name are moved 
In slumber's ear : then slumber breaks ; 

And I am drawn to thee, beloved. 
Thou drawest me, thou drawest me, 

Through sleep, through night. I hear 
the rills, 

And hear the leopard in the hills, 
And down the dark I feel to thee. 

The vineyards and the villages 

Were silent in the vales, the rocks. 
I followed past the myrrhy trees. 

And by the footsteps of the flocks. 
Wild honey, dropt from stone to stone, 

Where bees have been, my path sug- 
gests. 

The winds are in the eagles' nests. 
The moon is hid. I walk alone. 

Thou drawest me, thou drawest me 

Across the glimmering wildernesses, 
And drawest me, my love, to thee. 

With dove's eyes hidden in thy tresses 
The world is many : my love is one. 

I find no likeness for my love. 

The cinnamons grow in the grove : 
The Golden Tree grows all alone. 

who hath seen her wondrous hair ! 

Or seen my dove's eyes in the woods 1 
Or found her voice upon the air ? 

Her steps along the solitudes ? 



172 



THE WANDERER. 



Or where is teauty like to hers ? 

She (Iraweth me, she draweth me. 

I sought her by the ineeuse-tree, 
And in the aloes, and in the tirs. 

Where art thou, my heart's delight, 
With dove's ej'^es hidden in thy locks ? 

My hair is wet with dews of night. 
My feet are torn upon the rocks. 

The cedarn scents, the spice.s, fail 

About me. Strange and stranger seems 
The path. There comes a sound of 
streams 

Above the darkness on the vale. 

No trees drop gums ; but poison flowers 
From rifts and clefts all round me fall ; 

The perfumes of thy midnight bowers. 
The fragrance of thy chambers, all 

Is drawing me, is drawing me. 

Thy baths prepare ; anoint thine hair : 
Oijen the window : meet me there : 

I come to thee, to thee, to thee ! 

Thy lattices are dark, my own. 

Thy doors are still; My love, look out. 
Arise, my dove with tender tone. 

The camplior-clusters all about 
Are whitening. Dawn breaks silently. 

And all my spirit with the dawn 

Expands ; and, slowly, slowly drawn, 
Through mist and darkness moves toward 
thee. 



MORNING AND MEETING. 

One yellow star, the largest and the last 
Of all the lovely night, was fading slow 
(As fades a happy moment in the past) 
Out of the changing east, when, yet 
aglow 
With dreams her looks made magical, 
from sleep 
I waked ; and oped the lattice. Like 

a rose 
All the red-opening morning 'gan 
disclose 
A ripened light upon the distant steep. 

A bell was chiming through the crystal 
air 
From the high convent-church upon 
the hill. 
The folk were loitering by to matin prayer. 
The church-bell called me out, and 
seemed to fill 



The air with little hopes. I reached the 
door 
Before the chanted hymn began to rise, 
And float its liquid Latin melodies 

O'er pious groups about the marble floor. 

Breathless, I slid among the kneelingfolk. 
A little bell went tinkling through the 
pause 
Of inward prayer. Then forth the low 
chant broke 
Among the glooming aisles, that 
through a gauze 
Of sunlight glimmered. 

Thickly throbbed my blood. 
I saw, dark-tressed in the rose-lit shade, 
Many a little dusk Italian maid. 
Kneeling with fervent face close where I 
stood. 

The morning, all a misty splendor, 
shook 
Deep in the mighty window's flame- 
lit webs. 
It touched the crowned Apostle with his 
hook. 
And brightened where the sea of jasper 
ebbs 
About those Saints' white feet that stand 
serene 
Each -with his legend, each in his own 

hue 
Attired : some beryl-golden : sapi)hire 
blue 
Some : and some ruby-red : some emer- 
ald-green. 

Wherefrom, in rainbow-wreaths, the rich 
light rolled 
About the snowy altar, sparkling clean. 
The organ groaned and pined, then, 
growing bold. 
Revelled the cherubs' golden wings 
atween. 
And in the light, beneath the music, 
kneeled 
(As pale as some stone Virgin bending 

solemn 
Out of the red gleam of a granite col- 
umn) 
Irene with claspt hands and cold lips 
sealed. 

As one who, pausing on some mountain- 
height, 
Above the breeze that breaks o'er vine- 
yard walls, 



IN ITALY. 



173 



Leans to the impulse of a M'ild delight, 
Bows earthward, feels the hills bow 
too, and falls — 
I dropt beside her. Feeling seemed to 
expand 
And close : a mist of music filled the air : 
And, when it ceased in heaven, I was 
aware 
That, through a rapture, I had toucht 
her hand. 



THE CLOUD. 

With shape to shape, all day. 
And change to change, by foreland, firth, 
and bay. 
The cloui comes down from wander- 
ing with the wind. 
Through gloom and gleam across the 
green waste seas ; 
And, leaving the white cliff and lone 
tower bare 
To empty air, 

Slips down the windless west, and 
grows defined 
In splendor by degrees. 

And, blown by every wind 
Of wonder th rough all regions of the mind, 
From hope to fear, from doubt to sweet 
despite 
Changing all shapes, and mingling 
snow with fire, 
The thought of her descends, sleeps o'er 
the bounds 
Of passion, grows, and rounds 

Its golden outlines in a gradual light 
Of still desire. 



ROOT AND LEAF. 

The love that deep within me lies 
tPumoved abides in conscious power ; 

Yet in the heaven of thy sweet eyes 
It varies every hour. 

A look from thee will flush the cheek : 
A word of thine awaken tears : 

And, ah, in all I do and speak 
How frail my love appears ! 

In yonder tree, Beloved, whose boughs 
Are household both to earth and heaven , 

"Whose leaves have murmured of our vows 
To many a balmy even, 



The branch that wears the liveliest green, 
Is shaken by the restless bird ; 

The leaves that nighest heaven are seen, 
By every breeze are stirred : 

But storms may rise, and thunders roll, 
Nor move the giant roots below ; 

So, from the bases of the soul, 
My love for thee doth grow. 

It seeks the heaven, and trembles there 
To every light and passing breath ; 

But from the heart no storm can tear 
Its rooted growth beneath. 



WARNINGS. 

Beware, beware of witchery ! 

And fall not in the snare 
That lurks and lies in wanton eyes. 

Or hides in golden hair : 
For the Witch hath sworn to catch thee, 
And her spells are on the air. 
"Thou art fair, fair, fatal fair, 
Irene ! 

What is it, what is it. 

In the whispers of the leaves ? 
In the night-wind, when its bosom. 

With the shower in it, grieves ? 
In the breaking of the breaker, 
As it breaks upon the beach 

Through the silence of the night ? 

Cordelia ! Cordelia ! 
A warning in my ear ^- 
" Not here ! not here ! not here ! 
But seek her yet, and seek her. 
Seek her ever out of reach. 
Out of reach, and out of sight ! " 

Cordelia ! 
EjJ^es on mine, when none can view me ! 
And a magic murmur through me ! 
And a presence out of Fairyland, 
Invisible, yet near ! 
Cordelia ! 
" In a time which hath not been : 
In a land thou hast not seen : 

Thou shalt find her, but not now : 
Thou shalt meet her, but not here ": 

Cordelia ! Cordelia ! 
" In the falling of the snow : 
In the fading of the year : 

When the light of hope is low. 
And the last red leaf is sere. " 
Cordelia ! 



174 



THE WANDERER. 



And my senses lie asleep, fast asleep, 

Irene ! 
In the chambers of this Sorceress, the 

South, 
In a shimber dim and deep, 

She is seeking yet to keep, 
Brimful of poisoned perfumes, 

The shut blossom of my youth. 
fatal, fatal fair Irene ! 

But the whispering of the leaves. 
And the night-wind, when it grieves. 
And the breaking of the breaker. 
As it breaks upon the beach 

Through the silence of the night, 

Cordelia ! 
Whisper ever in my ear 
"Not here ! not here ! not here ! 
But awake, wanderer ! seek her. 
Ever seek her out of reach, 
Out of reach, and out of sight ! " 
CordeUa ! 

There is a star above me 

Unlike all the m.illions round it. 
There is a heart to love me, 
Although not yet I have found it. 
And awhile, 

Cordelia, Cordelia ! 
A light and careless singer. 
In the subtle South I linger. 
While the blue is on the mountain. 
And the bloom is on the peach. 
And the fire-fly on the night, 

Cordelia ! 
But my course is ever norward. 
And a whisper whispers "For- 
ward ! " 
Arise, wanderer, seek her. 
Seek her ever out of reach. 
Out of reach and out of sight ! 
Cordelia ! 
Out of sight, 

Cordelia ! Cordelia ! 

Out of reach, out of sight, 
Cordelia ! 



A FANCY. 

How sweet were life, — this life, if we 
(My love and I) might dwell together 

Here beyond the summer sea, 

In the heart of summer weather ! -; 

With pomegranates on the bough, 
And with lilies in the bower ; 



And a sight of distant snow, 
Rosy in the sunset hour. 

And a little house, — no more 

In state than suits two quiet lovers ; 

And a woodbine round the door. 

Where the swallow builds and hovers ; 

With a silver sickle-moon, 

O'er hot gardens, red with roses : 

And a window wide, in June, 

For serenades when evening closes : 

In a chamber cool and simple, 

Trellised light from roof to basement .; 
And a summer wind to dimple 

The white curtain at the casement : 

Where, if we at midnight wake, 
A green acacia-tree shall quiver 

In the moonlight, o'er some lake 
Where nightingales sing songs forever. 

With a pine-wood dark in sight ; \ 
And a bean-field climbing to us. 

To make odors faint at night 

Where we roam with none to view us. 

And a convent on the hill. 

Through its light gi'een olives peeping 
In clear sunlight, and so still. 

All the nuns, you 'd say, were sleeping. 

Seas at distance, seen beneath 
Grated garden-wildernesses ; — • 

Not so far but what their breath 
At eve may fan my darling's tresses. 

A piano, soft in sound. 

To make music when speech wanders. 
Poets reverently bound. 

O'er whose pages rapture ponders. 

Canvas, brushes, hues, to catch 
Fleeting forms in vale or mountain : 

And an evening star to watch 

When all 's still, save one sweet foun- 
tain. 

Ah ! I idle time away 

With impossible fond fancies ! 
For a lover lives all day 

In a land of lone romances. 

But the hot light o'er the city 

Drops, — and see ! on fire departs. 



m ITALY. 



175 



And the night comes down in pity- 
To the longing of our hearts. 

Bind thy golden hair from falling, 
my love, my one, my own ! 

'T is for thee the cuckoo 's calling 
With a note of tenderer tone. 

Up the hillside, near and nearer, 

Through the vine, the corn, the flow- 
ers. 

Till the veiy air grows dearer, 
Neighboring our pleasant bowers. 

Now I pass the last Poderfe : 
There, the city lies behind me. 

See her fluttering like a fairy 
O'er the hi^py grass to find me ! 



ONCE. 

A FALLING star that shot across 
The intricate and twinkling dark 

Vanisht, yet left no sense of loss 
Throughout the wide ethereal arc 

Of those serene and solemn skies 
That round the dusky prospect rose, 

And ever seemed to rise, and rise, 
Through regions of unreached repose. 

Far, on the windless mountain-range, 
One crimson sparklet died : the blue 

Flushed with a brilliance, faint and 
strange, 
The ghost of daylight, dying too. 

But half-revealed, each terrace urn 
' Glimmered, where now, in filmy flight, 
We watched return, and still return, 
The blind bats searching air for sight. 

With sullen fits of fleeting sound. 
Borne half asleep on slumbrous air. 

The drowsy beetle hummed around, 
And passed, and oft repassed us, there ; 

Where, hand in hand, our looks alight 
With thoughts our pale lips left un- 
told, 

We sat, in that delicious night. 
On that dim terrace, green and old. 

Deep down, far off, the city lay. 

When forth from all its spires was 
swept 



A music o'er our sonl? ; and they 
To music's midmost meanings leapt ; 

And, crushing some delirious cry 
Against each other's lips, we clung 

Together silent, while the pky 
Throbbing with sound around us hung •• 

For, borne from bells on music soft, 
That solemn hour went forth through 
heaven. 

To stir the starry airs aloft, 

And thrill the piirple pulse of even. 

happy hush of heart to heart ! 

moment molten through with bliss ! 

Love, delaying long to part 
That first, fast, individual kiss ! 

Whereon two lives on glowing lips 
Hung claspt, each feeling fold in fold, 

Like daisies closed with crimson tips. 
That sleep about a heart of gold. 

Was it some drowsy rose that moved ? 

Some dreaming dove's pathetic moan ^ 
Or was it my name from li])S beloved ? 

And was it thy sweet breath, mine own. 

That made me feel the tides of sense 
O'er life's low levels rise with might. 

And pour my being down the immense 
Shore of some mystic Infinite ? 

" 0, have I found thee, my soul's soul ? 

My chosen forth from time and space I 
And did we then break earth's control ? 

And have I seen thee face to face ? 

" Close, closer to thy home, my breast, 
Closer thy darling arms enfold ! 

1 need such warmth, for else the rest 

Of life will freeze me dead with cold. 

" Long was the search, the eff'ort long. 
Ere I compelled thee from thy sphere, 

I know not with what mystic song, 
I know not with what nightly tear : 

" But thou art here, beneath whose eyes 
My passion falters, even as some 

Pale wizard's taper sinks, and dies. 
When to his spell a spirit is come. 

" My brow is pale with much of pain : 
Though I am young, my youth is gone, 

And, shouldst thou leave me lone again, 
I think I could not live alone. 



176 



THE WANDERER. 



" As some idea, half divined, 
With tumult works within the brain 

Of desolate genius, and the mind 
Is vassal to imperious pain, 

" For toil by day, for tears by night, 
Till, in the splaere of vision brought, 

Rises the beautiful and bright 

Predestined, but relentless Thought ; 

" So, gathering up the dreams of years, 
Thy love doth to its destined seat 

Rise sovran, through the light of tears — 
Achieved, accomplisht, and complete ! 

" I fear not now lest any hour 

Should chill the lips my own have 
prest ; 
For I possess thee by the power 

Whereby I am myself possest. 

"These eyes must lose their guiding 
light : 
These lips from thine, I know, must 
sever : 
looks and lips may disunite, 
But ever love is love forever ! " 



SINCE. 

Words like to these were said, or dreamed 
(How long since !) on a night divine, 

By lips from which such rapture streamed 
I cannot deem those lips were mine. 

The day comes up above the roofs. 
All sallow from a night of rain ; 

The sound of feet, and wheels, and hoofs 
In the blurred street begins again : 

The same old toil — no end — no aim ! 

The same vile babble in my ears ; 
The same unmeaning smiles : the same 

Most miserable dearth of tears. 

The same dull sound : the same dull 
lack 

Of lustre in the level gray : 
It seems like Yesterday come back 

With his old things, and not To-day. 

But now and then her name will fall 
From careless lips with little praise, 

On this dry shell, and shatter all 
The smooth indifference of my days. 



They chatter of her — deem her light —' 
The apes and liars ! they who know 

As well to sound the unfathomed Night 
As her impenetrable woe ! 

And here, where Slander's scorn is spilt, 
And gabbling Folly clucks above 

Her addled eggs, it feels like guilt. 
To know that far away, my love 

Her heart on everj"- heartless hour 
Is bruising, breaking, for my sake : 

While, coiled and numbed, and void of 
power. 
My life sleeps like a winter snake. 

I know that at the mid of night, 

(When she flings by the glittering stress 

Of Pride, that mocks the vulgar sight. 
And fronts her chamber's loneliness,) 

She breaks in tears, and, overthrown 
With sorrowing, weeps the night away, 

Till back to his unlovely throne 
Returns the unrelenting day. 

All treachery could devise hath wrought 
Against us : — letters robbed and read : 

Snares liid in smiles : betrayal bought : 
And lies imputed to the dead. 

I will arise, and go to her, 

And save her in her own despite ; 

For in my breast begins to stir 

A pulse of its old power and might. 

They cannot so have slandered me 
But what, I know, if I should call 

And stretch my arms to her, that she 
Would rush into them, spite of all. 

In Life's great lazar-house, each breath 
We breathe may bring or spread the 
pest ; 

And, woman, each may catch his death 
From those that lean upon his breast. 

I know how tender friends of me 
Have talked with broken hint, and 
glance : 
— The choicest flowers of calumny. 
That seem, like weeds, to spring from 
chance ; — 

That small, small, imperceptible 
Small talk, which cuts like powdered 
glass 



IN ITALY. 



177 



Ground in Tophana — none can tell 
Where lurks the power the poison has ! 

I may be worse than they would prove, 
(Who knows the worst of any man ?) 

But, right or wrong, be sure my love 
Is not what they conceive, or can. 

Nor do I question what thou art. 
Nor what thy life, in great or small, 

Thou art, I know, what all my heart 
Must beat or break for. That is all. 



A LOVE-LETTER. 

My love, — my chosen, — but not mine ! 
I se])^ 
My whole heart to thee in these words 
I write ; 
So let the blotted lines, my soul's sole 
friend, 
Lie upon thine, and there be blest at 
night. 

This flowei", whose bruised purple blood 
will stain 
The page now wet with the hot tears 
that fall — 
(Indeed, indeed, I struggle to restrain 
This Aveakness, but the tears come, 
spite of all ! ) 

I plucked it from the branch you used to 
praise, 
The branch that hides the wall. I 
tend your flowers. 

I keep the patTis we paced in happier 
days . 

" How long ago they seem, those pleas- 
ant hours. ,, 

The white laburnum's out. Your judas- 
tree 
Begins to shed those crimson buds of 
his. 
TJie nightingales sing— ah, too joyously ! 
Who says those birds are sad ? I think 
there is 

That in the books we read, which deeper 
wrings 
My heart, so they lie dusty on the 
shelf. 
Ah me, I meant to speak of other things 
Less sad. In vain ! they bring me to 
myself. 

12 



I know your patience. And I would not 
cast 
New shade on days so dark as yours 
are grown 
By weak and wild repining for the past, 
Since it is past forever, mine own ! 

For hard enough the daily cross you bear, 

Without that deeper pain reflection 

brings ; 

And all too sore the fretful household care, 

Free of the contrast of remembered 

things. 

But ah ! it little profits, that we thrust 
From all that 's said, what both must 
feel, unnamed. 
Better to face it boldly, as we must. 
Than feel it in the silence, and be 
shamed. 

Irene, I have loved you, as men love 
Light, music, odor, beauty, love it- 
self ; — 
Whatever is apart from, and above 
Those daily needs which deal with dust 
and pelf. 

And I had been content, without one 
thought 
Our guardian angels could have blusht 
to know. 
So- to have lived and died, demanding 
nought 
Save, living dying, to have loved you 
so. 

My youth, was orphaned, and my age 
will be 
Childless. I have no sister. None, 
to steal 
One stray thought from the many 
thoughts of thee. 
Which are the source of all I think 
and feel. 

My wildest wish was vassal to thy will : 
My haughtiest hope, a pensioner on 
thy smile, 
Which did with light my barren being 

fill, 
As moonlight glorifies some desert isle. 

I never thought to know what I have 
known, — 
The rapture, dear, of being loved by 
you: 



178 



THE WANDEKEE. 



I never thought, within my heart, to 
own 
One wish so hlest that you should 
share it too : 

Nor ever did I deem, contemplating 

The many sorrows in this place of pain, 
So strange a sorrow to my life could 
cling, 
As, being thus loved, to be beloved in 
vain. 

But now we know the best, the worst. 
We have 
Interred, and prematurely, and un- 
known, 
Our youth, our hearts, our hopes, in one 
small grave, 
Whence we must wander, widowed, 
to our own. 

And if we comfort not each other, what 
Shall comfort us, in the dark days to 
come ? 
Not the light laughter of the world, and 
not 
The faces and the firelight of fond 
home. 

And so I write to you ; and write, and 
write, 
For the mere sake of writing to you, 
dear. 
What can I tell you, that you know 
not ? Night 
Is deepening through the rosy atmos- 
phere 

About the lonely casement of this room, 
Which you have left familiar with the 
grace 
That grows where you have been. And 
on the gloom 
I almost fancy I can see your face. 

Not pale with pain, and tears restrained 
for me, 
As when I last beheld it ; but as first, 
A dream of rapture and of poesy, 

Upon my youth, hke dawn on dark, it 
burst. 

Perchance I shall not ever see again 
That face. I know that I shall never 
see 

Its radiant beauty as I saw it then, 
Save by this lonely lamp of memorj', 



With childhood's starry gi-aces lingering 

yet 

I' the rosy orient of youngwonianhood ; 
And eyes like woodland violets newly wet ; 
And lips that left their meaning in 
my blood ! 

I will not say to you what I might say 
To one less worthily loved, less worthy 
love. 
I will not say . . . "Forget the past. 
Be gay. 
And let the all ill-judging world ap- 
prove 

" Light in your eyes, and laughter on 
your lip." 
I wUl not say ..." Dissolve in thought 
forever 
Our sorrowful, but sacred, fellowship." 
For that would be, to bid you, dear, 
dissever 

Your nature from its nobler heritage 
In consolations registered in heaven, 

For griefs this world is barren to assuage, 
And hopes to which, on earth, no 
home is given. 

But I would whisper, what forevermore 
My own heart whispers through the 
wakeful night, . . . 
"This grief is but a shadow, flung be- 
fore, 
From some refulgent substance out of 
sight." 

Wherefore it happens, in this riddling 
world, 
That, where sin came not, sorrow yet 
should be ; 
Why heaver's most hurtful thunders 
should be hurled 
At what seems noblest in humanity ; 

And we are punished for our purest 
deeds, 
And chastened for our holiest 
- thoughts ; . . . alas ! 
There is no reason found in all the 
creeds, 
Why these things are, nor whenca 
they come to pass. 

But in the heart of man, a secret voice 
There is, which speaks, and will not 
be restrained, 



IN ITALY. 



179 



Which cries to Grief . . . "Weep on, 
while I rejoice, 
Knowing thcat, somewhere, all will be 
explained." 

I will not cant that commonplace of 
friends, 
Which never yet hath dried one 
mourner's tears, 
Nor say that griefs slow wisdom makes 
amends 
For broken hearts and desolated years. 

For who would barter all he hopes from 
life, 
To be a little wiser than his kind ? 
Who arm his nature for continued 
strife, 
Where all he seeks for hath been left 
behind ? 

But I would say, pure and perfect 
pearl 
Which I have dived so deep in life to 
find. 
Locked in my heart thou liest. The 
wave may curl. 
The wind may wail above us. Wave 
and wind, 

What are their storm and strife to me 
and you ? 
No strife can mar the pure heart's in- 
most calm. 
This life of ours, what is it ? A very 
few 
Soon-ended years, and then, — the 
ceaseless psalm, 

And the eternal sabbath of the soul ! 
Hush ! . , . while I write, from the 
dim Carmine 
The midnight angelus begins to roll. 
And float athwart the darkness up to 
me. 

My messenger (a man by danger tried) 
Waits in the courts below ; and ere 
our star 
Upon the forehead of the dawn hath 
died. 
Beloved one, this letter will be far 



Athwart the mountain, and the mist, to 

I know 



you. 
I know each robber hamlet. 
all 



This mountain people. I have friends, 
both true 
And trusted, sworn to aid whate'er be- 
fall. 

I have a bark upon the gulf. And I, 

If to my heart I yielded in this hour. 
Might say. . . "Sweet fellovv-sutlerer, 
let us fly ! 
I know a little isle which doth em- 
bower 

" A home where exUed angels might for- 
bear 
Awhile to mourn for paradise." . . . 
But no ! 
Never, whate'er fate now may bring us, 
dear, 
Shalt thou reproach me for that only 
woe 

Which even love is powerless to console ; 

Which dwells where duty dies : and 

haunts the tomb 

Of life's abandoned purpose in the soul ; 

And leaves to hope, in heaven itself, 

no room. 

Man cannot make, but may ennoble, fate, 

By nobly bearing it. So let us trust. 

Not to ourselves, but God, and calmly 

wait 

Love's orient, out of darkness and of 

dust. 

Farewell, and yet again farewell, and yet 
Never farewell, — if farewell mean to 
fare 
Alone and disunited. Love hath set 
Oui" days, in music, to the self-same 
air; 

And I shall feel, wherever we ma}'^ be, 
Even though in absence and an alien 
clime. 
The shadow of the sunniness of thee. 
Hovering, in patience, through a 
clouded time. 

Farewell ! The dawn is rising, and the 
light 
Is making, in the east, a faint en- 
deavor 
To illuminate the mountain peaks. 
Good night. 
Thine own, and only thine, my love, 
forever. 



180 



THE WANDERER. 



CONDEMNED ONES. 

Above tliy child I saw thee bend, 
Where in that silent room we sat apart. 
I watched the involuntary tear descend ; 
The firelight was not all so dim, my 

friend, 
But I could read thy heart. 

Yet when, in that familiar room, 
I strove, so moveless in my place, . 
To look with comfort in thy face, 
That child's young smile was all that I 

could see 
Ever between us in the thoughtful 

gloom, — 
Ever between thyself and me, — 
With its bewildering grace. 

Life is not what it might have been, 

Nor are we what we would ! 

And we must meet with smiling mien. 

And part in careless mood, 

Knov/ing that each retains unseen. 

In cells of sense subdued, 

A little lurking secret of the blood — 

A little serpent-secret rankling keen — 

That makes the heart its food. 

Yet is there much for grateful tears, if 

sad ones, 
And Hope's young orphans Memory 

mothers yet ; 
So let them go, the sunny days we had 

once. 
Our night hath stars that will not ever 

set. 
And in our hearts are harps, albeit not 

glad ones, 
Yet not all unmelodious, through whose 

strings 
The night-winds murmur their familiar 

things, 
Unto a kindred sadness : the sea brings 
The spirits of its solitude, with wings 
Folden about the music of its lyre, 
Thrilled vith deep duals by sublime de- 
sire, 
Which never can attain, yet ever must 

aspire, 
And glorify regret. 

What might have been, I know, is not : 

What must be, must be borne : 

But, ah ! what hath been will not be 

forgot, 
Never, oh ! never, in the years to follow ! 



Though all their summers light a waste 
forlorn, 

Yet shall there be (hid from the careless 
swallow 

And sheltered from the bleak wind in 
the thorn) 

In Memory's mournful but beloved hol- 
low. 

One dear green spot ! 

Hope, the high will of Heaven 
To help us hath not given. 
But more than nnto most of consolation : 
Since heart from heart may borrow 
Healing for deep heart-sorrow, 
And draw from yesterday, to soothe to- 
morrow, 
The sad, sweet divination 
Of that unuttered sympathy, which is 
Love's sorceress, and for Love's dear sake, 
About us both such spells doth make, 
As none can see, and none can break. 
And none restrain ; — a secret pain 
Claspt to a secret bliss ! 

A tone, a touch, \ . 

A little look, may be so much ! I 
Those moments brief, nor often,' 
When, leaning laden breast to iDreast, 
Pale cheek to cheek, life, long represt, 
May gush with tears that leave half blest 
The want of bliss they soften. 
The little glance across the crowd. 
None else can read, wherein there lies 
A life of love at once avowed — 
The embrace of pining eyes. . . . 
So little more had made earth heaven, 
That hope to help us was not given ! 



THE STORM. 

Both hollow and hill were as dumb as 
death. 
While the skies were silently changing 

form ; 
And the dread forecast of the thunder- 
storm 
Made the crouched land hold in its 
breath. 

But the monstrous vapor as yet was un- 
riven 
That was breeding the thunder and 

lightning and rain ; 
And the wind that was waiting to ruin 
the plain 
Was yet fast in some far hold of heaven. 



IN ITALY. 



181 



So, in absolute absence of stir or strife, 
The red land lay as still as a drifted 

leaf : 
The roar of the thunder had been a 
relief, 
To the calm of that death-brooding life. 

At the wide-iiung casement she stood 
full height, 
"With her long rolling hair tumbled 

all down her back ; 
And, against the black sky's super- 
natural black, 
Her white neck gleamed scornfully white. 

I could catch not a gleam of her angered 
eyes 
(She waB sullenly watching the slow 

storm roll). 
But I felt they were drawing down 
into her soul 
The thunder that darkened the skies. 

And how could I feign, in that heartless 
gloom, 
To be carelessly reading that stupid 

page ? 
What harm, if I flung it in anguish 
and rage. 
Her book, to the end of the room ? 

"And so, do we part thus forever?" 
... I said, 
" 0, speak only one word, and I par- 
don the rest ! " 
She drew her white scarf tighter over 
her breast. 
But she never once turned round her 
head. 

"In this wicked old world is there 
naught to disdain ? 
Or " — I groaned — "are those dark 

eyes such deserts of blindness. 
That, Woman ! your heart must 
hoard all its unkindness, 
For the man on whose breast it hath 
lain? 

" Leave it nameless, the grave of the 
grief that is past ; 
Be its sole sign the silence we keep 

for its sake. 
I have loved you — lie still in my 
heart till it break : 
As I loved, I must love to the last. 



" Speak ! the horrible silence is stifling 
my soul." 
She turned on me at once all the storm 

in her eyes ; 
And I heard the low thunder aloof in 
the skies. 
Beginning to mutter and roll. 

She turned — by the lightning revealed 
in its glare, 
And the tempest had clothed her with 

terror : it clung 
To the folds of her vaporous garments, 
and hung 
In the heaps of her heavy wild hair. 

But one word broke the silence ; but 
one ; and it fell 
With the weight of a^ mountain upon 

me. Next moment 
The fierce levin flashed in my eyes. 
From my comment 
She was gone when I turned. Who can 
tell 

How i got to my home on the mountain ? 
I know 
That the thunder was rolling, the 

lightning still flashing, 
The great bells were tolling, my very 
brain crashing 
In my head, a few hours ago : 

Then all hushed. In the distance the 
blue rain receded ; 
And the fragments of storm were 

spread out on the hills ; 
Hard by, from my lattice, I heard the 
far rills 
Leaping down their rock-channels, wild' 
"weeded. 

The round, red moon was yet low in the 
air. . . . 
0, I knew it, foresaw it, and felt it, 

before 
I heard her light hand on the latch of 
the door ! 
When it opened at last, — she was there. 

Childlike, and wistful, and sorrowful- 
eyed. 
With the rain on her hair, and the 

rain on her cheek ; 
She knelt down, with her fair forehead 
fallen and meek 
In the light of the moon at my side. 



182 



THE WANDERER 



And she called me by every caressing old 
name 
She of old had invented and chosen 

for me : 
She crouched at my feet, with her 
cheek on my knee, 
Like a wild thing grown suddenly tame. 

In the world there are women enough, 
maids or mothers ; 
Yet, in multiplied millions, I never 

should find 
The symbol of aught in her face, or 
her mind. 
She has nothing in common with others. 

And she loves me ! This morning the 
earth, pressed beneath 
Her light foot, keeps the print. 'T was 

no vision last night. 
For the lily she dropped, as she went, 
is yet white 
With the dew on its delicate sheath ! 



THE VAMPYRE. 

I FOITND a corpse, with golden hair, 
Of a maiden seven months dead. 

But the face, with the death in it, still 
was fair. 
And the lips with their love were red. 
Rose leaves on a snow-drift shed, 
Blood-drops by Adonis bled. 
Doubtless were not so red. 

I combed her hair into curls of gold. 

And I kissed her lips till her lips 
were warm, 
And I bathed her body in moonlight cold. 

Till she grew to a living form : 
Till she stood iip bold to a magic of old, 

And walked to a muttered charm — 

Life-like, without alarm. 

And she walks byme, and she talks by me, 
Evermore, night and day ; 

For she loves nie so, that, wherever I go, 
She follows me all the way — 
This corpse — you would almost say 
There pined a soul in the clay. 

Her eyes are so bright at the dead of 

night 
That they keep me awake with dread ; 
And my life-blood fails in my veins, and 

pales 



At the sight of her lips so red : 
For her face is as white as the pillow by 
night 
Where she kisses me on my bed : 
All her gold hair outspread — 
Neither alive nor dead. 

I would that this woman's head 
Were less golden about the hair : 

I would her lips were less red, 
And her face less deadly fair. 
For this is the worst to bear — 
How came that redness there ? 

'T is my heart, be sure, she eats for her 
food ; 
And it makes one's whole flesh creep 
To think that she diinks and drains my 
blood 
Unawares, when I am asleep. 
How else could those red lips keep 
Their redness so damson-deep ? 

There 's a thought like a serpent, slips 

Ever into my heart and head, — 
There are plenty of women, alive and 
human. 
One might woo, if one wished, and 
wed — 
Women with hearts, and brains, — ay, 
and lips 
Not so very terribly red. 

But to house with a corpse — and she so 

fair. 
With that dim, unearthly, golden hair, 

And those sad, serene, Islue eyes, 
With their looks from who knows where. 
Which Death has made so wise, 
With the grave's own secret there — 
It is more than a man can bear ! 

It were better for me, ere I came nigh her. 

This corpse — ere I looked upon her, 

Had they burned my body in flame and fire 

With a sorcerer's dishonor. 
For when the Devil hath made hig 
lair, 
And lurks in the eyes of a fair young 
woman 
(To gi'ieve a man's soul with her golden 
hair, 
And break his heart, if his heart be 
human), 
Would not a saint despair 
To be saved by fast or prayer 
From perdition made so fair ? 



IN ITALY. 



183 



CHANGE. 

She is nnkind, unkind ! / 

On the windy hill, to-day, 

I sat in the sound of the wind. 

I knew what the wind would say. 

It said ... or seemed to njy mind . . . 

" The flowers are falling away. 

The summer," ... it said, ..." will 

not stay. 
And Love will be left behind. " 

The swallows were swinging themselves 
In the leaden-gray air aloft ; 
Flitting by tens and twelves. 
And returning oft and oft ; 
Like the thousand thoughts in me, 
That went, and came, and went. 
Not letting me even be 
Alone with my discontent. 

The hard-vext weary vane 
Rattled, and moaned and was still, 
In the convent over the plain, 
By the side of the windy hill. 
It was sad to hear it complain. 
So fretful, and weak, and shrill, 
Again, and again, and in vain. 
While the wind was changing his will. 

I thought of our walks last summer 
By the convent-walls so green ; 
Of the first kiss stolen from her, 
"With no one near to be seen. 
I thought (as we wandei'ed on. 
Each of us waiting to speak) 
How the daylight left us alone. 
And left his last light on her cheek. 

The plain was as cold and gray 
■(With its villas like glimmering shells) 
As some north-ocean bay. 
All dumb in the church were the bells. 
In the mist, half a league away. 
Lay the little white house where she 
dwells. 

I thought of her face so bright. 
By the firelight bending low 
O'er her work so neat and white ; 
Of her singing so soft and slow ; 
Of her tender- toned " Good-night" ; 
But a very few nights ago. 

O'er the convent doors, I could see 
A pale and sorrowful-eyed 
Madonna looking at me, 
As when Our Lord first died. 



There was not a lizard or spider 

To be seen on the broken walls. 

The ruts, with the rain, had grown wider 

And blacker since last night's falls. 

O'er the universal dulness 

There broke not a single beam. 

I thought how my love at its fulness 

Had changed like a change in a dream. 

The olives were shedding fast 
About me, to left and right. 
In the lap of the scornful blast 
Black berries and leaflets white. 
I thought of the many romances ~~> 
One wintry word can blight ; y 

Of the tender and timorous fancies S 
By a cold look put to flight. 

How many noble deeds 
Strangled perchance at their birth! 
The smoke of the burning weeds 
Came up with the steam of the earth. 
From the red, wet ledges of soil. 
And the sere vines, row over row, — 
And the vineyard-men at their toil, 
Who sang in the vineyard below. 

Last Spring, while I thought of her here, 
I found a red rose on the hill. 
There it lies, withered and sere ! 
Let him trust to a woman who will. 

I thought how her words had grown colder. 
And her fair face colder still, 
From the hour whose silence had told her 
What has left me heart-broken and ill ; 
And "Oh ! " I thought, ...«' if I be- 
hold her 
Walking there with him under the hill ! " 

O'er the mist, from the mournful city 
The blear lamps gleamed aghast, — 
— " She has neither justice, nor jiity," 
I thought, . . . "all 's over at last ! " 
The cold eve came. One star 
Through a ragged gray gap forlorn 
Fell down from some region afar. 
And sickened as soon as born. 
I thought, " How long and how lone 
The j^ears will seem to be, 
When the last of her looks is gone. 
And my heart is silent in me ! " 

One streak of scornful gold, 

In the cloudy and billowy west. 

Burned with a light as cold 

As love in a much-wronged breast. 



184 



THE WANDERER. 



I thought of her face so fair ; 

Of her perfect bosom and arm ; 

Of her deep sweet eyes and hair ; 

Of her breath so pure and warm ; 

Of her foot so fine and fairy 

Through the meadows where she would 

pass ; 
Of the sweep of her skirts so airy 
And fragrant over the grass. 

/l thought ..." Can I live without her 
,' Whatever she do, or say ? " 

I thought ... "Can I dare to doubt her, 

Now M'hen I have given away 

My whole self, body and spirit, 

To keep, or to cast aside, 

To dower or disinherit, — 

To use as she may decide ? " 

The West was beginning to close 
O'er the last light burning there. 
I thought ..." And when that goes, 
The dark will be everywhere ! " 

Oh ! well is it hidden from man 
Whatever the Future may bring. 
The bells in the church began 
On a sudden to sound and swing. 
The chimes on the gust were caught, 
And rolled up the windy height. 
I rose, and returned, and thought . . . 
"I SHALL NOT SEE HEK TO-NIGHT." 



A CHAIN TO WEAR. 

Away ! away ! The dream was vain. 

We meet too soon, or meet too late : 
Still M^ear, as best you ma3% the chain 

Your own hands forged about your fate. 
Who could not wait ! 

What ! . . . you had given your life away 
Before you found what most life 
misses ? 
Forsworn the bridal dream, you saj', 
Of that ideal love, whose kisses 
Are vain as this is ! 

Well, I have left upon your mouth 
The seal I know must burn there yet; 

My claim is set upon your youth ; 
My sign upon your soul is set : 
Dare you forget ? 

And you '11 haunt, I know, where music 
plays, 
Yet find a pain in music's tone ; 



You '11 blush, of course, when others 
])raise 
That beauty scarcely now j^our own. 
What 's done, is done ! 

For me, you say, the world is wide, — 
Too wide to find the grave I seek ! 

Enough ! whatever now betide. 

No greater pang can blanch my cheek. 
Hush ! ... do not speak. 



SILENCE. 

Words of fire, and words of scorn, 
I have written. Let them go ! 

Words of love — heart-broken, torn, 
With this strong and sudden woe. 

All my scorn, she could not doubt, 

Was but love turned inside out. 

Silence, silence, still unstirred ; 

Long, unbroken, unexplained : 
Not one word, one little word, 

Even to show her touched or pained : 
Silence, silence, all unbroken : 
Not a sound, a sign, a token. 

Well, let silence gather round 
All this shattered life of mine. 

Shall I break it by a sound ? 
Let it grow, and be divine — 

Divine as that Prometheus kept 

When for his sake the sea-nymphs 
wept. 

Let silence settle, still and deep ; 

As the mist, the thunder-cloud, 
O'er the lonely blasted steep, 

Which the red bolt hath not bowed. 
Settle, to drench out the star, 
And cancel the blue vales afar. 

In this silence I will sheathe 
The sharp edge and point of all ! 

Not a sigh my lips shall breathe ; 
Not a groan, whate'er befall. 

And let this sworded silence be 

A fence 'twixt prying fools and me. 

Let silence be about her name. 
And o'er the things which once have 
been : 

Let silence cover up my shame. 
And annul that face, once seen 

In fatal hours, and all the light 

Of those eyes extinguish quite. 



IN ITALY. 



185 



tn silence, I go forth alone 

O'er the. solemn mystery 
Of the deeds which, to be done, 

Yet undone in the future lie. 
I ])eer in Time's high nests, and there 
Espy the callow brood of Care, 

The fledgeless nurslings of Regret, 
With beaks forever stretched for food : 

But why should I forecount as yet 
The rnvage of that vulture brood ? 

O'er all these things let silence stay, 

And lie, like snow, along my way. 

Let silence in this outraged heai't 
Abide, and seal these lips forever ; 

Let silence dwell with me apart 
Beside t]ifi ever-habbling river 

Of that loud life in towns, that runs 

Blind to the changes of the suns. 

Ah ! from what most moiirnful star, 
\Yasting down on evening's edge, 

Or what barren isle afar 

Flung by on some bare ocean ledge, 

Came the wicked hag to us. 

That changed the fairy revel thus ? 

There were sounds from sweet guitars 
Once, and lights from lamps of amber ; 

Both went up among the stars 

From many a perfumed palace-cham- 
ber : 

Suddenly the place seemed de?,d ; 

Light and music both were fled. 

Darkness in each perfumed chamber ; 

Darkness, silence, in the stars ; 
Darkness on the lamps of amber ; 
• Silence in the sweet guitars : 
Darkness, silence, evermore 
Guard empty chamber, moveless door. 



NEWS. 

News, tiews, news, my gossiping 
friends ! 

T have wonderful news to tell. 
A lady, by me, her compliments sends ; 

And this is the news from Hell : 

The Devil is dead. He died resigned. 
Though somewhat opprest by cares ; 

But his wife, my friends, is a woman of 
mind, 
And looks after her lord's affairs. 



I have just conie back from that wonder- 
ful place. 
And kist hands with the Queen down 
there ; 
But I cannot describe Her Majesty's face, 
It has hlled me so with despair. 

The place is not what you might sup- 
pose : 
It is worse in some respects. 
But all that I heard there, I must not 
disclose, 
For the lady that told me objects. 

The laws of the land are not Salique, 

But the King never dies, of course ; 
The new Queen is young, and pretty, 
and chic, 
There are women, I think, that are 
worse. 

But however that be, one thing I know. 

And this I am free to tell ; 
The Devil, my friends, is a woman, just 
now ; 

'T is a woman that reigns in Hell. 



COUNT EINALDO RINALDI. 

'T IS a dark-purple, moonlighted mid- 
night : 

There is music about on the air. 
And, where, through the water, fall 
flashing 

The oars of each gay gondolier, 
The lamp-lighted ripples are dashing, 

In the musical moonlighted air. 
To the music, in merriment ; washing, 

And splashing, the black marble stair 
That leads to the last garden-terrace, 

Where many a gay cavalier 
And manj' a lady yet loiter, 

Round the Palace in festival there. 

'T is a terrace all paven mosaic, — 

Black marble, and green malachite ; 
Round an ancient Yenetian Palace, 

Where the windows with lampions are 
bright. 
'T is an evening of gala and festival. 

Music, and passion, and light. 
There is love in the nightingales' throats, 

That sing in the garden so well : 
T^eTQ is love in the face of the moon : 



186 



THE WANDERER. 



There is love in tlie warm languid 
glances 

Of the dancers adown the dim dances : 
There is love in the low languid notes 

That rise into rapture, and swell, 
From viol, and iiute, and bassoon. 

The tree that bends down o'er the water 

So black, is a black cypress-tree. 
And the statue, there, under the terrace, 

Mnemosyne's statue must be. 
There comes a black gondola slowly 

To the Palace in festival there : 
And the Count Rinaldo Rinaldi 

Has mounted the black marble stair. 

There was nothing but darkness, and 
midnight. 
And tempest, and storm, in the breast 
Of the Count Rinaldo Rinaldi, 

As his foot o'er the black marble 
prest : — 
The glimmering black marble stair 
Where the weed in the green ooze is 
clinging, 
That leads to the garden so fair. 

Where the nightingales softly are 

singing, — 
Where the minstrels new music are 
stringing. 
And the dancers for dancing prepare. 

There rustles a robe of white satin : 
There 's a footstep falls light by the 
stair : 

There rustles a robe of white satin : 
There 's a gleaming of soft golden hair : 

And the Lady Irene Ricasoli 

Stands near the cypress-tree there, — 
Near Mnemosyne's statue so fair, — 

The Lady Irene Ricasoli, 

With the light in her long golden 
hair. 

And the nightingales softly are singing 
In the mellow and moonlighted air ; 

And the minstrels their viols are string- 
ing; 
And the dancers for dancing prepare. 

" Siora," the Count said unto her, 

" The shafts of ill-fortune pursi;e me ; 
The old grief grows newer and newer, 

The old pangs are never at rest ; 

And the foes that have sworn to undo 
me 

Have left me no peace ta my breast. 



They have slandered, and wronged, and 
maligned me : 
Though they broke not my sword in 
my hand. 
They have broken my heart in mj' bosom 
And sorrow my youth has unmanned. 
But I love you, Irene, Irene, 

With such love as the wretched alone 
Can feel from the desert within them 

Which only the wretched have known ! 
And the heart of Rinaldo Rinaldi 

Dreads, Lady, no frown but your 
own. 
To others be all that you are, love — 

A lady more lovely than most ; 
To me — be a fountain, a star, love, 
That lights to his haven the lost ; 
A shrine that with tender devotion, 
The mariner kneeling, doth deck 
With the dank weeds yet drij^ping from 
ocean, 
And the last jewel saved from the 
wreck. 

"None heeds us, beloved Irene ! 

None will mark if we linger or fly. 
Amid all the mad masks in yon revel, 

There is not an ear or an eye, — 
Not one, ■ — that will gaze or will listen ; 

And, save the small star in the sky 
Which, to light us, so softlj' doth glisten, 

There is none will pursue us, Irene. 

love me, save me, I die ! 
I am thine, be mine, beloved ! 

" Fly with me, Irene, Irene ! 

The moon drops : the morning is near, 
My gondola waits by the garden 

And fleet is my own gondolier ! " 
What the Lady Irene Ricasoli, 

By Mnemosyne's statue in stone. 
Where she leaned, 'neath the black 
cypress-tree, 

To the Count Rinaldo Rinaldi 

Replied then, it never was known. 
And known, now, it never will be. 

But the moon hath been melted in 
morning : 
And the lamps in the windows are 
dead : 
And the gay cavaliers from the terrace. 
And the ladies they laughed with, are 
fled; 
And the music is husht in the viols : 
And the minstrels, and dancers, are 
gone ; 



IN ITALY. 



187 



And the nightingales now in the garden, 
From singing have ceased, one by one : 

But the Count Einaldo Rinaldi 

Still stands, where he last stood, alone, 

'Neath the black cypress-tree, near the 
water. 

By Mnemosyne's statue in stone. 

O'er his spirit was silence and midnight, 

In his breast was the calm of despair. 
He took, with a smile, from a casket 

A single soft curl of gold hair, — 

A wavy warm curl of gold hair, 
And into the black-bosomed water 

He flung it athwart the black stair. 
The skies they were changing above him ; 

The dawn, it came cold on the air ; 
He drew from his bosom a kerchief — 

"Would," he sighed, "that her face 
was less fair ! 

That her face was less hopelessly fair." 
And folding the kerchief, he covered 

The eyes of Mnemosyne there. 



THE LAST MESSAGE, 

Flino the lattice open. 

And the music plain you '11 hear ; 
Lean out of the window. 

And you '11 see the lamplight clear. 

There, j'ou see the palace 
Where the bridal is to-night. 

You may shut the window. 
Come here, to the light. 

Take this portrait with you, 

Look well before you go. 
She can scar.ce be altered 

Since a year ago. 

Women's hearts change lightly, 
(Truth both trite and olden !) 

But blue eyes remain blue ; 
Golden hair stays golden. 

Once I knew two sisters : 

One was dark and grave 
As the tomb ; one radiant 

And changeful as the wave. 



Now away, friend, quickly ! 

Mix among the masks : 
Say you are the bride's friend, 

If the bridegroom asks. 



If the bride have dark hair. 

And an olive brow. 
Give her this gold bracelet ; — 

Come and let me know. 

If the bride have bright hair, 

And a brow of snow. 
In the great canal there 

Quick the portrait throw : 

And you '11 merely give her 

This poor faded flower. 
Thanks ! now leave your stylet 

With me for an hour. 

You 're my friend : whatever 

I ask you now to do, 
If the case were altered, 

I would do for you. 

And you '11 promise me, my mother 
Shall never miss her son, 

If anything should happen 
Before the night is done. 



VENICE. 

The sylphs and ondines. 
And the sea-kings and queens. 
Long ago, long ago, on the waves buUt a 
city. 
As lovely as seems 
To some bard, in his dreams. 
The soul of his latest love-ditty. 
Long ago, long ago, — ah ! that was long 
ago 
Thick as gems on the chalices 

Kings keep for treasure. 
Were the temples and palaces 
In this city of pleasure : 
And the night broke out shining 
With lamps and with festival. 
O'er the squares, o'er the streets; 
And the soft sea went, pining 
With love, through the musical. 
Musical bridges, and marble re- 
treats 
Of this city of wonder, where dwelt the 

ondines, 
Long ago, and the sylphs, and the sea- 
kings and queens, 
— Ah ! that was long ago ! 
But the sylphs and ondines. 
And the sea-kings and queens 
Are fled under the waves : 



188 



THE WANDERER. 



And I glide, and I glide 
Up the glimmering tide 

Through a city of graves. 
Here will I bury my heart, 

Wrapt in the dream it dreamed ; 
One grave more to the many ! 
One grave as silent as any ; 
Sculptured about with art, — 

For a palace this tomb once seemed. 
Light lips have laughed there, 
Bright eyes have beamed. 
Revel and dance ; 
Lady and lover ! 
Pleasure hath quaffed there : 
Beauty hath gleamed, 
Love wooed Romance. 
Now all is over ! 
And I glide, and I glide 
Up the glimmering tide, 
'Mid forms silently passing, as silent as 
any. 
Here, 'mid the waves. 
In this city of graves 
To bury my heart — one gi'ave more to 
the many ! 



ON THE SEA. 

Come ! breathe thou soft, or blow thou 

bold. 
Thy coming be it kind or cold. 
Thou soul of the heedless ocean wind ; — 
Little I rede and little I reck, 
Though the mast be snapt on the mizzen- 

deck, 
So thou blow her last kiss from my neck. 
And her memory from my mind ! 

Comrades around the mast^ 
The welkin is o'ercast : 
One watch is wellnigh past — 
Out of sight of shore at last ! 

Fade fast, thou falling shore, 
With that fair false face of yore, 
And the love, and the life, now o'er ! 
What she sought, that let her have — 
The praise of traitor and knave. 
The simper of coward and slave, 
And the worm that clings and stings — 
The knowledge of nobler things. 
But here shall the mighty sea 
Make moan with my heart in me. 
And her name be torn 
By the winds in scorn. 



In whose march we are moving free. 
I am free, I am free, I am free ! 
Hark ! how the wild waves roar ! 
Hark ! how the wild winds rave ! 
Courage, true hearts and brave, 
Whom Fate can afflict no more ! 

Comrades, the night is long. 

I will sing you an ancient song 

Of a tale that was told 

In the days of old. 

Of a Baron blithe and strong, — 

High heart and bosom bold. 

To strive for the right with wrong ! 

" Who left his castled home. 

When the Cross was raised in Rome, 

And swore on his sword 

To fight for the Lord, 

And the banners of Christendom. 

To die or to overcome ! 

" In hauberk of mail, and helmet of steel, 
And armor of jjroof from head to heel, 
0, what is the wound which he shall 

feel? 
And where the foe that shall make him 

reel ? 
True knight on whose crest the cross doth 

shine ! 
They buckled his harness, brought him 

his steed — 
A stallion black of the land's best breed — 
Belted his spurs, and bade him God-speed 
'Mid the Paynim in Palestine. 
But the wife that he loved, when she 

poured him up 
A last deep health in her golden cup. 
Put poison into the wine. 

" So he rode till the land he loved grew 

dim, 
And that poison began to work in him, — 
A true knight chanting his Christian 

hymn, 
With the cross on his gallant crest. 
Eastward, aye, from the waning west, 
Toward the land where the bones of the 

Saviour rest, 
And the Battle of God is to win : 
With his young wife's picture upon his 

breast, 
And her poisoned wine Avithin. 

" Alas ! poor knight, poor knight ! 
He carries the foe he cannot fight 
In his own true breast shut up. 



IN FRANCE. 



189 



He shall die or ever he fight for the Lord, 

And his heart be broken before his sword. 

He hath pledged his life 

To a faithless wife, 

In the wine of a poisoned cup ! " 

Comrade, thy hand in mine ! 
Pledge me in our last wine, 
While all is dark on the brine. 
My friend, I reck not now 
If the wild night- wind should blow 
Our bark beyond the poles : — 
To drift through fire or snow, 
Out of reach of all we know — 
Cold heart, and narrow brow, 
Smooth faces, sordid souls ! 
Lost, like some pale crew 
From Ophir*in golden galleys. 
On a witch's island ! who 
Wander the tamarisk alleys, 
Where the heaven is blue, 
And the ocean too. 
That murmurs among the valleys. 



" Perisht with all on board ! " 

So runs the vagrant fame — 

Thy wife weds another lord, 

My children forget my name, 

While we count new stars by night. 

Each wanders out of sight 

Till the beard on his chin grows white 

And scant grow the curls on his head. 

One paces the placid hours 

In dim enchanted bowers. 

By a soft-eyed Panther led 

To a magical milk-white bed 

Of deep, pale poison-flowers. 

With ruined gods one dwells, 

In caverns among the fells. 

Where, with desolate arms outspread, 

A single tree stands dead. 

Smitten by savage spells, 

And striking a silent dread 

From its black and blighted head 

Through the horrible, hopeless, sultry 

dells 
Of Elephanta, the Red. 



BOOK II.-I]^ FEAI^OE. 



"PRENSUS IN MGMO." 

'T IS toil must help us to forget. 

In strife, they say, grief finds repose. 
Well, there 's the game ! I throw the 
stakes : — 
A life of war, a world of foes, 
A heart that triumphs while it breaks. 
Some day I too, perchance, may lose 
This shade which memory o'er me 

throws. 
And laugh as others laugh, (who 
knows ?) 
But ah, 't will not be yet ! 

How many years since she and I 

Walked that old terrace, hand-in- 
hand ! 
Just one star in the rosy sky. 

And silence on the summer land. 
And she ? . . . 

I think I hear her sing 

That song, — the last of all our songs. 
Ho w all comes back ! — thing after thing, 

The old life o'er me throngs ! 



But I must to the palace go ; 

The ambassador's to-morrow : 
Here 's little time for thought, I know, 

And little more for sorrow. 
Already in the porte-cocMre 

The carriage sounds . . . my hat and 
gloves ! 
I hear my friend's foot on the stair, — 

How joyously it moves ! 
He must have done some wicked thing 

To make him tread so light ; 
Or is it only that the king 

Admired his wife last night ? 
We talk of nations by the waj'', 

And praise the Nuncio's manners. 
And end with something fine to say 

About the "allied banners." 
'T is well to mix with all conditions 

Of men in every station : 
I sup to-morrow with musicians, 

Upon the invitation 
Of my clever friend, the journalist, 

Who writes the reading plays 
Which no one reads ; a socialist 

Most social in his ways. 



190 



THE WANDEEER. 



But I am sick of all the din 
That 's made in praising Verdi, 

"VVho only know a violin 
Is not a hurdy-gurdy. 

Here oft, while on a nerveless hand 

An aching brow reclining, 
Through this tall window where I stand, 

I see the great town shining. 
Hard by, the restless Boulevart roars. 

Heard all the night through, even in 
dreaming : 
While from its hundred open doors 

The many-headed Life is streaming. 
Upon the world's wide thoroughfares 

My lot is cast. So be it ! 
Each on his back his burthen bears. 

And feels, though he may not see it. 
My life is not more hard than theirs 

Who toil on either side : 
They cry for quiet in their prayers, 

And it is still denied. 

But sometimes, when I stand alone. 

Life pauses, — now and then : 
And in the distance dies the moan 

Of miserable men. 
As in a dream (how strange !) I seem 

To be lapsing, slowly, slowly, 
From noise and strife, to a stiller life. 

Where all is husht and holy. 

Ah, love ! our way 's in a stranger land. 

We may not rest together. 
For an Angel takes me by the hand. 

And leads me . . . whither ? whither ? 



1 L'ENTRESOL. 

One circle of all its golden hours 
The flitting hand of the Time-piece 
there, 

In its close white bower of china flowers, 
Hath rounded unaware : 

While the firelight, flung from the flicker- 
ing wall 
On the large and limpid mirror behind, 
Hath reddened and darkened down o'er 
all, 
As the fire itself declined. 

Something of pleasure and something of 
pain 
There lived in that sinking light. 
What is it ? 



Faces I never shall look at again, 

In places you never will visit, ■* 

Revealed themselves in each faltering 
ember. 

While, under a palely wavering flame, 
Half of the years life aches to remember 

Reappeared, and died as they came. 

To its dark Forever an hour hath gone 
Since either you or I have spoken : 

Each of us might have been sitting 
alone 
In a silence so unbroken. 

I never shall know what made me look 
up 
(In this cushioned chair so soft and 
deep, 
By the table where, over the empty cup, 
I was leaning, half asleep) 

To catch a gleam on the picture up 
there 
Of the saint in the wilderness under 
the oak ; 
And a light on the brow of the bronze 
Voltaire, 
Like the ghost of a cynical joke. 

To mark, in each violet velvet fold 
Of the curtains that fall 'twixt room 
and room, 

The dip and dance of the manifold 
Shadows of rosy gloom. 

O'er the Rembrandt there — the Caracci 
here — 
Flutter warmly the ruddy and waver- 
ing hues ; 
And St. Anthony over his book has a 
leer 
At the little French beauty by Greuze. 

There, — the Leda, weighed over her 
white swan's back, 
By the weight of her passionate kiss, 
ere it falls ; 
O'er the ebony cabinet, glittering black 
Through its ivory cups and balls : 

Your scissors and thimble, and work 

laid away, -j 

With its silks, in the scented rose- \ 
wood box ; 
The journals, that tell truth every day. 
And that novel of Paul de Kock's : 
/■ • 



IN FKANCE. 



191 



The flowers in the vase, with their bells 
shut close 
lu a dream of the far green, fields 
where they grew ; 
The cai'ds of the visiting people and 
shows 
In that bowl with the sea-green hue. 

Your shawl, with a queenly droop of its 
own, 
Hanging over the arm of the crimson 
chair : 
And, last, — yourself, as silent as stone, 
In a glow of the firelight there ! 

I thought you were reading all this time. 

And was it some wonderful page of 
your ISook 
Telling of love, with its glory and crime, 

That has left you that sorrowful look ? 

For a tear from those dark, deep, humid 
orbs 
'Neath their lashes, so long, and soft, 
and sleek, 
All the light in your lustrous eyes ab- 
sorbs, 
As it trembles over your cheek. 

Were you thinking how we, sitting side 
by side. 
Might be dreaming miles and miles 
apart ? 
Or if lips could meet over a gulf so wide 
As separates heart from heart ? 

Ah, well ! when time is flown, how it 
fled 
.It is better neither to ask nor tell. 
Leave the dead moments to bury their 
dead. 
Let us kiss and break the spell ! 

Come, arm in arm, to the window here ; 

Draw by the thick curtain, and see 
how, to-night. 
In the clear and frosty atmosphere, 

The lamps are burning bright. 

All night, and forever, in yon great town, 
The heaving Boulevart flares and roars ; 

And the streaming Life flows up and 
down 
From its hundred open doors. 

It is scarcely so cold, but I and you. 
With never a friend to find us out, 



May stare at the shops for a moment 
or two. 
And wander awhile about. 

For when in the crowd we have taken 

our place, 
( — Just two more lives to the mighty 

street there !) 
Knowing no single form or face 

Of the men and women we meet 

there, — 

Knowing, and known of, none in the 
whole 
Of that crowd all round, but our two 
selves only. 
We shall grow nearer, soul to soul, 
Until we feel less lonely. 

Here are your bonnet and gloves, dear. 
There, — 
How stately you look in that long 
rich shawl ! 
Put back your beautiful golden hair, 
That never a curl may falL 



. so, 



as you 



Stand in the firelight , 
were, — 
my heart, how fearfully like her 
she seemed ! 
Hide me up from my own despair. 
And the ghost of a dream I dreamed ! 



TERRA INCOGNITA. 

How sweet it is to sit beside her. 
When the hour brings nought that 's 
better ! 
All day in my thoughts to hide her, 
And, with fancies free from fetter, 
Half remember, half forget her. 
Just to find her out by times 
In my mind, among sweet fancies 
Laid away : 
In the fall of mournful rhymes ; 
In a dream of distant climes ; 
In the sights a lonely man sees 
At the dropping of the day ; 

Grave or gay. 
As a maiden sometimes locks 
With old letters, whose contents 
Tears have faded. 
In an old worm-eaten box. 
Some sweet packet of faint scents, 
Silken-braided ; 
And forgets it : 



192 



THE WANDERER. 



Careless, so I hide 

In my life her love, — 
Fancies on each side, 

Memories heaped ahove : — 
There it lies, unspied : 

Nothing frets it. 
On a sudden, when 

Deed, or word, or glance, 
Brings me back again 
To the old romance, 
With what rapture then, — 
When, in its completeness. 
Once my heart hath found it. 
By each sense detected, 
Steals on me the sweetness 
Of the air around it, 
Where it lies neglected ! 
Shall I break the charm of this 

In a single minute ? 
For some chance with fuller bliss 

Proflfered in it ? 
Secrets unsealed bjj^ a kiss, 

Could I win it ! 
'T is so sweet to linger near her. 

Idly so ! 
Never reckoning, while I hear her 

Whispering low. 
If each whisper wiU make clearer 

Bliss or woe ; 
Never roused to hope or fear her 

Yes or No ! 
What if, seeking something more 

Than before. 
All that 's given I displace — 

Calm and grace — 
Nothing ever can restore, 
As of yore. 
That old quiet face ! 
Quiet skies in quiet lakes. 
No wind wakes, 
All their beauty double : 
But a single pebble breaks 
Lake and sky to trouble ; 
Then dissolves the foam it makes 

In a bubble. 
With the pebble in my hand. 
Here, upon the brink, I stand ; 
Meanwhile, standing on the brink. 

Let me think ! 
Not for her sake, but for mine. 
Let those eyes unquestioned shine, 

Half divine : 
Let no hand disturb the rare 
Smoothness of that lustrous hair 

Anywhere : 
Let that white breast never break 
Its calm motion — sleep or wake — 



For my sake. 
Not for her sake, but for mine, 
All I might have, I resign. 

Should I glow 
To the hue — the fragrance fine - 
The mere first sight of the wine, 
If I drained the goblet low ? 

Who can know ? 
With her beauty like the snow, 
Let her go ! Shall I repine 
That no idle breath of mine 
Melts it ? No ! 'T is better so. 
All the same, as she came. 
With her beauty like the snow. 
Cold, unspotted, let her go ! 



A REMEMBRANCE. 

'T WAS eve and May when last, througli 
tears, 
Thine eyes sought mine, thy hand my 
hand. 
The night came down her silent spheres. 
And up the silent land. 

In silence, too, my thoughts were furled, 
Like ring-doves in the dreaming grove. 
Who would not lightly lose the world 
To keep such love ? 

But many Mays, with all their flowers. 
Are faded since that blissful time — 
The last of all my happy hours 

I' the golden clime ! 

By hands not thine these wreaths were 
curled 
That hide the cafe my brows above : 
And I have almost gained the world. 
But lost that love. 

As though for some serene dead brow. 

These wreaths for me I let them twine. 
I hear the voice of praise, and know 
It is not thine. 

How many long and lonely days 

I strove with life thy love to gain ! 
I know my work was worth thy praise ; 
But all was vain. 

Vain Passion's fire, vain Music's art ! 
For who from thorns grape-bunches 
gathers ? 
What depth is in the shallow heart ? 

What weight in feathers ? 



m FRANCE. 



193 



As drops the blossom, ere the growth 

Of fruit, on some autumnal tree, 
I drop from my changed life, its youth 
And joy in thee : 

And look beyond, and o'er thee, — right 

To some subliraer end than lies 
Within the compass of the sight 
Of thy cold eyes. 

"With thine my soul hath ceased its strife. 
Thy part is filled ; thy work is done ; 
Thy falsehood buried in my life, 

And known to none. 

Yet still will golden memories frame 

Thy broken image in my heart, 
And loveJ'or what thou wast shut blame 
Prom what thou art. 

In Life's long galleries, haunting-eyed, 

Thy pictured face no change shall show; 
LikesomedeadQueen'swholivedanddied 
An age ago ! 



MADAME LA MARQUISE. 

The folds of her wine-dark -nolet dress 
Glow over the sofa, fall on fall. 

As she sits in the air of her loveliness 
With a smile for each and for all. 

Half of her exquisite face in the shade 
Which o'er it the screen in her soft 
hand flings : 
Through the gloom glows her hair in its 
odorous braid : 
In the firelight are sparkling her rings. 

As she leans, — the slow smile half shut 
up in her eyes 
Beams the sleepy, long, silk-soft lashes 
beneath ; 
Through her crimson lips, stirred by her 
faint replies, 
Breaks one gleam of her pearl-white 
teeth. 

As she leans, — where your eye, by her 
beauty subdued. 
Droops — from under wann fringes of 
broidery white 
The slightest of feet — silken-slippered, 
protrude, 
For one moment, then slip out of 
sight. 

13 



As I bend o'er her bosom, to tell her the 
news. 
The faint scent of her hair, the ap- 
proach of her cheek. 
The vague warmth of her breath, all my 
senses suffuse 
With HERSELF : and I tremble to speak. 

So she sits in the curtained, luxurious 
light 
Of that room, with its porcelain, and 
pictures, and flowers. 
When the dark day 's half done, and the 
snow flutters white. 
Past the windows in feathery showers. 

AU without is so cold, — 'neath the low 
leaden sky ! 
Down the bald, empty street, like a 
ghost, the gendarme 
Stalks surly : a distant carriage hums 
by:- 
All within is so bright and so warm ! 

Here we talk of the schemes and the 
scandals of court, 
How the courtesan pushes : the char- 
latan thrives : 
We put horns on the heads of our friends, 
just for sport : 
Put intrigues in the heads of their 
wives. 

Her warm hand, at parting, so strangely 
thrilled mine. 
That at dinner I scarcely remark what 
they say, — 
Drop the ice in my soup, spill the salt 
in my wine, 
Then go yavni at my favorite play. 

But she drives after noon : — then 's the 
time to behold her. 
With her fair face half hid, like a ripe 
peeping rose, 
'Neath that veil, — o'er the velvets and 
furs which enfold her, 
Leaning back with a queenly repose, — 

As she glides up the sunlight ! . . . You 'd 
say she was made 
To loll back in a carriage, all day, with 
a smile, 
And at dusk, on a sofa, to lean in the 
shade 
Of soft lamps, and be wooed for a 
while. 



194 



THE WANDERER. 



Could we find out her heart through 
that velvet and lace ! 
Can it beat without ruffling her sump- 
tuous dress ? 
She will show us her shoulder, her 
bosom, her face ; 
But w^hat the heart's like, we must 
guess. 

wfth live women and men to be found 
.< in the world — 
( — Live with sorrow and sin, — live 
with pain and with passion, — ) 
Who could live with a doll, though its 
lt).cks should be curled. 
And *s petticoats trimmed in the 
fashion ? 

'T is so fair ! . . . would my bite, if I 

bit it, draw blood ? 

Will it cry if I hurt it ? or scold if I kiss ? 

Is it made, with its beauty, of wax or 

of wood ? 

... Is it worth while to guess at all this ? 



THE NOVEL. 

" Here, I have a book at last — 
Sure," Ithought, "to make you weep !" 

But a careless glance you cast 
O'er its pages, haK asleep. 

'T is a novel, — a romance, 

(What you will) of youth, of home, 
And of brilliant days in France, 

And long moonlit nights in Rome. 

'T is a tale of tears and sins, 
Of love's glory and its gloom ; 

In a ball-room it begins, 
And it ends beside a tomb ; 

There 's a little heroine too, 

Whom each chapter leaves more pale ; 
And her eyes are dark and blue 

Like the violet of the vale ; 

And her hand is frail and fair ; 

Could you but have seen it lie 
O'er the convent death-bed, where 

Wept the nuns to watch her die, 

You, I think, had wept as well ; 

For the patience in her face 
(Where the dying sunbeam fell) 

Had such strange heart-breaking grace. 



There 's a lover, eager, bold. 
Knocking at the convent gate : 

But that little hand grows cold. 
And the lover knocks too late. 

There 's a high-bom lady stands 

At a golden mirror, pale ; 
Something makes her jewelled hands 

Tremble, as she hears the tale 

Which her maid (while weaving roses 
For the ball, through her dark hair) 

Mixed with other news, discloses. 
0, to-night she will look fair ! 

There 's an old man, feeble-handed, 
Counting gold . . . " My son shall wed 

With the Princess, as I planned it, 
Now that little girl is dead." 

There 's a young man, sullen, husht. 
By remorse and grief unmanned, 

With a withered primrose crusht 
In his hot and feverish hand. 

There's a broken-hearted woman, 
Haggard, desolate, and wild. 

Says . . . "The world hath grown in- 
human ! 
Bury me beside my child." 

And the little god of this world 
Hears them, laughing in his sleeve. 

He is master still in his world, 
There 's another, we believe. 

Of this history every part 

You have seen, yet did not heed it ; 
For 't is wi'itten in my heart, 

And you have not learned to read it. 



AUX ITALIENS. 

At Paris it was, at the Opera there ; — 
And she looked like a queen in^ book, 
that night, - " ^ 

With the wreath of pearl in her raven 
hair, 
And the brooch on her breast, so 
bright. 

Of all the operas that Verdi wrote. 
The best, to my taste, is the Trovatore : 

And Mario can soothe with a tenor note 
The souls in Purgatory. 



IN FRANCE. 



195 



The moon on the tower slept soft as snow : 
And who was not thrilled in the 
strangest way, 
As we heard him sing, while the gas 
burned low, 
" Noil ti scordar di me" 'i 

The Emperor there, in his box of state. 
Looked grave, as if he had just then 
seen 

The red flag wave from the city-gate. 
Where his eagles in bronze had been. 

The Empress, too, had a tear in her eye. 

You'd have said that her fancy had 
gone back again. 
For one moment, under the old blue sky, 

To th^ld glad life in Spain. 

"Well ! there in our front-row box we sat. 
Together, my bride-betrothed and I ; 

My gaze was fixed on my opera-hat, 
And hers on the stage hard by. 

And both were silent, and both were sad. 

Like a queen, she leaned on her full 
white arm. 
With that regal, indolent air she had ; 

So confident of her charm ! 

I have not a doubt she was thinking then 
Of her former lord, good soul that he 
was ! 
Who died the richest and roundest of 
men, 
The Marquis of Carabas. 

I hope that, to get to the kingdom of 
heaven. 
Through a needle's eye he had not to 
pass. 
I wish him well, for the jointure given 
To my lady of Carabas. 

Meanwhile, I was thinking of my first 
love, 
As I had not been thinking of aught 
for years, 
Till over my eyes there began to move 
Something that felt like tears. 

I thought of the dress that she wore last 
time, 

, When we stood, 'neath the cypress- 
trees, together, 

In that lost land, in that soft clime, 
In the crimson evening weather : 




Of that muslin dress (for the eve was hot), 
And her warm white neck in its golden 
chain 
And her full, soft hair, just tied in a 
knot, 
And falling loose again : 



And the jasmin-flower in her fair 
breast : 
(0 the faint, sweet smell of thi 
min-flower !) 
And the one bird singing alone 
nest : 
And the one star over the tower. 



I thought of our little quarrels am'/strifo"; 
And the letter that brought I'lii- back 
my ring. 
And it all seemed then, in tli *^' 

life, 
Such a very little thing ! 

For I thought of her grave below the hii ; j 
Which the sentinel cypress-tree stands^ 
over. J 

And I thought . . . "were she only liv* 
ing still, 
How I could forgive her, and love 
her ! " 

And I swear, as I thought of her thus, 
in that hour. 
And of how, after all, old things were 
best, 
That I smelt the smell of that jasmin- 
flower. 
Which she used to wear in her breast. 

It smelt so faint, and it smelt so sweet, 
It made me creep, and it made me cold ! 

Like the scent that steals from the 
crumbling sheet 
Where a mummy is half unrolled. 

And I turned, and looked. She was sit- 
ting there 
In a dim box, over the stage ; and drest 
In that muslin dress, with that full soft 
hair. 
And that jasmin in her breast ! 

I was hei'e : and she was there : 
And the glittering horseshoe curved 
between : — 
From my bride-betrothed, with her ra- 
ven hair. 
And her sumptuous, scornful mien. 



196 



THE WANDEKER. 



To my early love, with her eyes downcast, 
And over her primrose face the shade, 

l(In short from the Future back to the Past) 
There was but a step to be made. 

To my early love from my future biide 
One moment I looked. Then 1 stole 
to the door, 

ll traversed the passage ; and down at 

. ■! her side, 

I was sitting, a moment more. 

lAIy thiiikiiifj;i3!|yier, or the music's strain, 
^r somethi^'./wliich never will be ex- 
\ pi-est, 
Had hirou;:;lj', her back from the grave 

^Vl:;il i ' 3 jasmin in her breast. 

-ut dead, and she is not wed ! 
(. she loves me now, and she loved 
me then ! 
And the veiy first word that her sweet 

lips said, 
jl My heart grew youthful again. 

f; 

< The Marchioness there, of Carabas, 

She is wealthy, and young, and hand- 
some still, 
And but for her . . . well, we '11 let that 
pass. 
She may marry whomever she will. 

But I will marry my own first love. 
With her primrose face : for old things 
are best. 
And the flower in her bosom, I prize it 
above 
The brooch in my lady's breast. 

The world is filled with folly and sin. 
And Love must cling whei-e it can, I say : 

For Beauty is easy enough to win ; 
But one is n't loved every day. 

And I think, in the lives of most women 
and men, 
There 's a moment when all would go 
smooth and even. 
If only the dead could find out when 
To come back, and be forgiven. 

But the smell of that jasmin-flower ! 

And that music ! and the way 
That voice rang out from the donjon tower 

JVon ti scordar di me, 
. Non ti scordar di in* I 



PROGRESS. 

When Liberty lives loud on every lip, 

But Freedom moans. 
Trampled by Nations whose faint foot- 
falls slip 
Round bloody thrones ; 
When, here and theie, in dungeon and in 
thrall. 
Or exile pale. 
Like torches dying at a funeral, 

Brave natures fail ; 
When Truth, the armed archangel, 
stretches wide 
God's tromp in vain. 
And the world, drowsing, turns upon its 
side 
To drowse again ; 
Man, whose course hath called itself 
sublime 
Since it began, 
What art thou in such dying age of time, 
As man to man ? 

When Love's last wrong hath been for- 
gotten coldlj''. 
As First Love's face : 
And, like a rat that comes to wanton 
boldly 
In some lone place, 
Once festal, — in the realm of light and 
laughter 
Grim Doubt appears ; 
Whilst weird suggestions from Death's 
vague Hereafter, 
O'er ruined years. 
Creep, dark and darker, with new dread 
to mutter 
Through Life's long shade, 
Yet make no more in the chill breast the 
flutter 
Which once they made : 
Whether it be, — that all doth at the 
grave 
Round to-its term, 
That nothing lives in that last darkness, 
save 
The little worm. 
Or whether the tired spirit prolong its 
course 
Through realms unseen, — 
Secure, that unknown world cannot be 

worse /- 

Than this hath been ; 
Then when through Thought's gold 
chain, so frail and slender. 
No link will meet ; 



IN FRANCE. 



197 



When all the broken harps of Language 
render 
No sound that 's sweet ; 
When, like torn books, sad days weigh 
down each other 
r the dusty shelf ; 
Man, what art thou, my friend, my 
brother, 
Even to thyself ? 



THE PORTRAIT. 

Midnight past ! Not a sound of aught 
Through the silent house, but the 
wind at his prayers. 

I sat by tMS dying fire, and thought 
Of the dear dead woman up stairs. 

A night of tears ! for the gusty rain 
Had ceased, but the eaves were drip- 
ping yet ; 
And the moon looked forth, as though 
in pain. 
With her face all white and wet : 

Nobody with me, my watch to keep, • 
But the friend of my bosom, the man 
I love : 

And grief had sent him fast to sleep 
In the chamber up above. 

Nobody else, in the country place 
All round, that knew of my loss beside. 

But the good young Priest with the 
Raphael-face, 
Who confessed her when she died. 

That good young Priest is of gentle nerve. 
And my grief had moved him beyond 
control ; 

For his lip grew white, as I could observe. 
When he speeded her parting soul. 

I sat by the dreary hearth alone : 

I thought of the pleasant days of 
yore : 

I said " the staff of my life is gone : 
The woman I loved is no more. 

"On her cold, dead bosom my portrait 
lies, 
Which next to her heart she used to 
wear — 
Haunting it o'er with her tender eyes 
When my own face was not there. 



" It is set all round with rubies red, 
And pearls which a Peri might have 
kept. 

For each ruby there, my heart luth bled : 
For each pearl, my eyes have wept." 

And I said — "the thing is precious to 
me : 
They will bury her soon in the church- 
yard clay ; 
It lies on her heart, and lost must be, 
If I do not take it away." 

I lighted my lamp at the dying flame. 
And crept up the stairs that creakediw- 
fright. 

Till into the chamber of death I came, 
Where she lay all in white. 

The moon shone over her winding-sheet. 

There, stark she lay on her carven bed**, 
Seven burning tapers about her feet, 

And seven about her head. 

As I stretched my hand, I held my 
breath ; 

I turned as I drew the curtains apart i 
I dared not look on the face of death : 

I knew where to find her heart, 

I thought, at first, as my touch fell there, 
It had warmed that heart to life, with 
love ; 
For the thing I touched was warm, I 
swear, 
And I could feel it move. 

'T was the hand of a man, that was mov- 
ing slow 
O'er the heart of the dead, — from the 
other side ; 
And at once the sweat broke over my 
brow, 
" Who is robbing the corpse ? " I cried. 

Opposite me, by the tapers' light. 
The friend of my bosom, the man I 
loved, 

Stood over the corpse, and all as white. 
And neither of us moved. 

"What do j'ou here, my friend ? " . . . 
- The man 
Looked first at me, and then at the 
dead. 
" There is a portrait here," he began ; 
" There is. It is mine," I said. 



<B. 



198 



THE WANDERER. 



Said the friend of my bosom, "yours, no 
doubt, 

The portrait was, till a month ago, 
"When this sufiering angel took that out, 

And placed mine there, 1 know." 

* ' This woman, she loved me well, " said I. 
"A month ago," said my friend to 
me; 
"And in your throat," I groaned, "you 
lie ! " 
He answered . . . "let us see." 

" Enough ! " I returned, " let the dead 
decide : 

And whose soever the portrait prove. 
His shall it be, when the cause is tried. 

Where Death is arraigned by Love." 

We found the portrait there, in its place : 
We opened it, by the tapers' shine : 

The gems were all unchanged : the face 
Was — neither his nor mine. 

" One nail drives out another, at least ! 

The face of the portrait there," I cried, 
"Is our friend's, the Raphael -faced 
young Priest, 

Who confessed her when she died." 

The setting is all of rubies red, 
And pearls which a Peri might have 
kept. 

For each ruby there my heart hath bled : 
For each pearl my eyes have wept. 



ASTARTE. 

When the latest strife is lost, and all is 
done with. 
Ere we slumber in the spirit and the 
brain. 
We drowse back, in dreams, to days that 
life begun with, 
And their tender light returns to us 
again. 

I have cast away the tangle and the tor- 
ment 
Of the cords that bound my life up in 
a mesh : 
And the pulse begins to throb that long 
lay dormant 
'Neath their pressure ; and the old 
wounds bleed afresh. 



I am touched again with shades of early 
sadness. 
Like the summer- cloud's light shadow 
in my hair : 
I am thrilled again with breaths of boy- 
ish gladness. 
Like the scent of some last primrose 
on the air. 

And again she comes, with all her silent 
graces. 
The lost woman of my youth, yet un- 
possest : 
And her cold face so unlike the other faces 
Of the women whose dead lips I since 
have prest. 

The motion and the fragrance of her 
gai-ments 
Seem about me, all the day long, in 
the I'oom : 
And her face, with its bewildering old 
endearments 
Comes at night, between the curtains, 
in the gloom. 

When vain dreams are stirred with sigh- 
ing, hear the morning, 
To my own her phantom lips I feel 
approach : 
And her smile, at eve, breaks o'er me 
without warning 
From its "^speechless, pale, perpetual 
. r^roach. 

When Life's dawning' glimmer yet had 
all the tint there 
Of the orient, in the freshness of the 
grass, 
(Ah, what feet since then have trodden 
out the print there !) 
Did her soft, her silent footsteps fall, 
and pass. 

They fell lightly, as the dew falls, 'mid 
un gathered 
Meadow-flowers ; and lightly lingered 
with the dew. 
But the dew is gone, the grass is dried 
and withered, 
And the traces of those steps have 
faded too. 

Other footsteps fall about me, — faint, 
uncertain, 
In the shadow of the world, as it re' 

cedes : 



IN FRANCE. 



199 



other forms peer through the half-up- 
lifted curtain 
Of that mysteiy which hangs behind 
the creeds. 

What is gone, is gone forever. And new 
fashions 
May replace old forms which nothing 
can restore : 
But I turn from sighing back departed 
passions 
With that pining at the bosom as of 
yore. 

I remember to have murmured, morn and 
even, 
•'Though the Earth dispart these 
Ea«*hlies, face from face, 
Yet the Heavenlies shall surely join in 
Heaven, 
For the spirit hath no bonds in time 
or space. 

"Where it listeth, there it bloweth ; all 
existence 
Is its region ; and it houseth, where 
it will. 
I shall feel her through kameasurable 
distance, 
And grow nearer and be gathered to 
her still. 

" If I fail to find her out by her gold 
tresses, 
Brows, and breast, and lips, and lan- 
guage of sweet strains, 
I shall know her by the traces of dead 
kisses, 
And that portion of myself which she 
retains. " 

But my being is confused with new ex- 
perience. 
And changed to something other than 
it was ; 
And the Future vnth the Past is set at 
variance ; 
And Life falters with the burthens 
which it has. 

Earth's old sins press fast behind me, 
weakly wailing : 
Faint before me fleets the good I have 
not done : 
And my search for her may still be un- 
availing 
'Mid the spirits that are passed beyond 
the sun. 



AT HOME DURING THE BALL. 

'T IS hard upon the dawn, and yet 
She comes not from the Ball. 

The night is cold, and bleak, and wet, 
And the snow lies over all. 

I praised her with her diamonds on : — 
And, as she went, she smiled. 

And yet I sighed, when she was gone, 
Above our sleeping child. 

And all night long, as soft and slow 

As falls the falling rain. 
The thoughts of days gone long ago 

Have filled my heart again. 

Once more I hear the Rhine rush down, 

(I hear it in my mind !) 
Once more, about the sleeping toAvn, 

The lamps wink in the wind. 

The narrow, silent street I pass : 
The house stands o'er the river : 

A light is at the casement-glass, 
That leads my soul forever. 

I feel my way along the gloom. 
Stair after stair, I push the door : 

I find no change within the room, 
And all things as of yore. 

One little room was all we had 
For June and for December. 

The world is wide, but how sa^ 
It seems, when I remember ! 

The cage with the canary-bird 

Hangs in the window still : 
The small red rose-tree is not stintd 

Upon the window-sill. 

Wide open her piano stands ; 

— That song I made to ease 
A passing pain while her soft hands 

Went faintly o' er the keys ! 

The fire withiii the stove bums down ; 

The light is dying fast. 
How dear is all it shines upon, 

That firelight of the Past ! 

No sound ! the drowsy Dutch-clock ticks. 

0, how should I forget 
The slender ebon crucifix, 

That by her bed is set ? 



200 



THE WANDERER. 



Her little bed is white as snow, — 

How dear that little bed ! 
Sweet dreams about the curtains go, 

And whisper round her head. 

That gentle head sleeps o'er her arm 

— Sleeps all its soft brown hair : 
And those dear clothes of hers, yet warm, 

Droop open on the chair. 

Yet warm the snowy petticoat ! 

The dainty corset too ! 
How warm the ribbon from her throat, 

And warm each little shoe ! 

Lie soft, dear arm upon the piUow ! 

Sleep, foolish little head ! 
Ah, well she sleeps ! I know the willow 

That cuj-tains her cold bed. — 

Since last I trod that silent street 

'T is many a year ago : 
And, if I there could set my feet 

Once more, I do not know 

If I should find it where it was, 

That house upon the river : 
But the light that lit the casement-glass 

I know is dark forever. 

Hark ! wheels below, ... my lady's 
knock ! 

— Farewell, the old romance ! — 
"Well, dear, you 're late, — past four 

o'clock ! — 
How often did you dance ? 

[Not cooler from the crowning waltz, 
She takes my half the pillow. — 

Well, — well I — the women free from 
faults 
Have beds below the willow ! 



AT HOME AFTER THE BALL. 

The clocks are calling Three 

Across the silent floors. 
The fire in the library 

Dies out ; through the open doors 
The red empty room you may see. 

In the nursery, up stairs, 
The child had gone to sleep. 

Half-way 'twixt dreams and prayers, 
When the hall-door made him leap 

To its thunders unawares. 



Like love in a worldly breast, 
Alone in my lady's chamber, 

The lamp burns low, supprest 
'Mid satins of broidered amber, 

Where she stands, half undrest : 

Her bosom all unlaced : 

Her cheeks with a bright red spot : 
Her long dark hair displaced, 

Down streaming, heeded not, 
From her white throat to her waist : 

She stands up her full height, 

With her ball-dress slipping down her, 
And her eyes as fixed and bright 

As the diamond stars that crown her, — 
An awful, beautiful sight. 

Beautiful, yes . . . with her hair 
So wild, and her cheeks so flusht t 

Awful, yes . . . for there 

In her beauty she stands husht 

By the pomp of her own despair ! 

And fixt there, without doubt, 
Face to face with her own sorrow, 

She win stand, till, from without. 
The light of the neighboring morrow 

Creeps in, and finds her out. 

With last night's music pealing 

Youth's dirges in her ears : 
With last night's lamps revealing. 

In the charnels of old years, 
The face of each dead feeling. 

Ay, Madam, here alone 

You may think, till your heart is bro- 
ken. 
Of the love that is dead and done. 

Of the days that, with no token, 
Forevermore are gone. — 

Weep if you can, beseech you ! 

There 's no one by to curb you : 
Your child's cry cannot reach you : 

Your lord vrall not disturb you : 
Weep ! . . . what can weeping teach you ? 

Your tears are dead in you. 

' ' What harm, where all things change," 
You say, " if we change too ? 

— The old still sunny Grange ! 
Ah, that 's far off i' the dew. 

" Were those not pleasant hours, 
Ere I was what I am ? 



IN FRANCE. 



'201 



My garden of fresh flowers ! 

My milk-white weanling lamh ! 
My bright laburnum bowers ! 

I 

" The orchard walls so trim ! / 

The redbreast in the thorn ! 

The twilight soft and dim ! 

The child's heart ! eve and morn, 

So rich with thoughts of Mm 1 " 

Hush ! your weanling lamb is dead : 

Your garden trodden over. 
They have broken the farm shed : 

They have buried your first lover 
With the grass above his head. 

Has the Past, then, so much power, 
You dirre take not from the shelf 

That book with the dry flower, 
Lest it make you hang yourself 

For being yourself for an hour ? 

Why can't you let thought be 

For even a little while ? 
There 's nought in memory 

Can bring you back the smile 
Those lips have lost. Just see. 

Here what a costly gem 

To-night in your hair you wore — 
Pearls on a diamond stem ! 

When sweet things are no more, 
Better not think of them. 

Are you saved by pangs that pained you. 
Is there comfort in all it cost you. 

Before the world had gained you, 
Before that God had lost you, 

Or your soul had quite disdained you ? 

For your soul (and this is worst 

To bear, as you well know) 
Has been watching you, from, first. 

As sadly as God could do ; 
And yourself yourseK have curst. 

Talk of the flames of Hell ! 

,^e fuel ourselves, I conceive. 
The fire the Fiend lights. Well, 

Believe or disbelieve, 
We know more than we tell ! 

Surely you need repose ! 

To-morrow again — the Ball. 
And you must revive the rose 

In your cheek, to bloom for all. 
Not go ? . . . why the whole world goes. 



/ To bed ! to bed ! 'T is sad 
, To find that Fancy's wings 
Have lost the hues they had. 
"^ ' In thinking of these things 
/ Some women have gone mad. 

AU CAF^ * * * . 
A PARTY of friends, all light-hearted and 

gay, 

At a certain French cafe, where every 
one goes, 
Are met, in a well-cm-tained warm cabi- 
net, 

Overlooking a street there, which every 
one knows. 

The guests are, three ladies well known 
and admired : 
One adorns the Lyrique ; one ... I oft 
have beheld her 
At the Vaudeville, with raptures ; the 
third lives retired 
" Dans ses 7neubles " . . . (we all know 
her house) . . . Rue de Helder. 

Besides these is a fourth ... a young 
Englishman, lately 
Presented the round of the clubs in 
the town. 
A taciturn Anglican coldness sedately 
Invests him : unthawed by Clarisse, 
he sits down. 

But little he speaks, and but rarely he 
shares 
In the laughter around him ; his 
smiles are but few ; 
There 's a sneer in the look that his 
countenance wears 
In repose ; and fatigue in the eyes' 
weary blue. 

The rest are three Frenchmen. Three 
Frenchmen (thank heaven !) 
Are but rarely morose, with Cham- 
pagne and Bordeaiix : 
And their wit, and their laughter, suf- 
fices to leaven 
With mirth their mute guest's imita- 
tion of snow. 

The dinner is done : the Lafitte in its 
basket, 
The Champagne in its cooler, is passed 
in gay ha*te ; 



202 



THE WANDERER. 



Whatever you wisli for, you have hut to 
ask it : 
Here are coffee, cigars, and liqueurs 
to your taste. 

And forth from the bottles the corks fly ; 
and chilly, 
The bright wine, in bubbling and 
blushing, confounds 
Its wamith with the ice that it seethes 
round ; and shrilly 
(TiU stifled by kisses) the laughter re- 
sounds. 

Strike, strike the piano, beat loud at 
the wall ! 
Let wealthy old Lycus with jealousy 
groan 
Next door, while fair Chloris responds 
to the call. 
Too fair to be supping with Lycus 
alone ! * 

Clarisse, with a smile, has subsided, op- 
prest, — 
Half, perhaps, by Champagne . . . 
half, perhaps, by affection, — 
In the arms of the taciturn, cold, Eng- 
lish guest, 
With, just rising athwart her imperial 
complexion, 

One tinge that young Evian himself 
might have kist 
From the fairest of Maenads that 
danced in his troop ; 
And her deep hair, unloosed from its 
sumptuous twist, 
Overshowering her throat and her 
bosom a-droop. 

The soft snowy throat, and the round, 
dimpled chin. 
Upturned from the arm-fold where 
hangs the rich head ! 
And the warm lips apart, while the 
white lids begin 
Ta close over the dark languid eyes 
which they shade ! 

And next to Clarisse (with her wild hair 
all wet 
From the wine, in whose blush its 
faint fire-fly gold 



' " Audeat invidus 

Dementem strepitum Lycus 
Et vicina seni non habilis Lyco " 



HOKACE. I 



She was steeping just now), the blue- 
eyed Juliette 
Is murmuring her witty bad things to 
Arnold. 

Cries Arnold to the dumb English guest 
..." Mon ami, 
What 's the matter ? . . . you can't sing 
. . . well, speak, then, at least : 
More grave, had a man seen a ghost, 
could he be ? 
Mais quel drole de farceur I . . . comme 
il a le vin triste I " 

And says Charles to Eugene (vainly 
seeking to borrow 
Ideas from a yawn) ..." At the club 
there are three of us 
With the Duke, and we play lansquenet 
till to-morrow : 
I am off on the spur . . . what say 
you ? . . . will you be of us ? " 

"Mon enfant, tu me hondes — tit me 
houdes, cheri," 
Sighs the soft Celestine on the breast 
of Eugene ; 
"Ah hah I ne me fais pas poser, mon 
aniie," 
Laughs her lover, and lifts to his lips 
— the Champagne. 

And loud from the bottles the corks fly ; 
and chilly 
The wine gurgles up to its fine crystal 
bounds. 
While Charles rolls his paper cigars 
roimd, how shrilly 
(Till kist out) the laughter of Juliette 
resounds ! 

Strike, strike the piano ! beat loud at 
the wall ! 
Let wealthy old Lycus with jealousy 
groan 
Next door, while fair Chloris responds 
to the call. 
Too fair to be supping with Lycus 
alone. 

There is Celestine singing, and Eugene 
is swearing. — 
In the midst of the laughter, the 
oaths, and the songs. 
Falls a knock at the door ; but there 's 
nobody hearing : 
Each, uninterrupted, the revel pro- 
longs. 



IN FRANCE. 



20^ 



Said I . . . "nobody hearing?" one 
only ; — the guest, 
The morose English stranger, so dull 
to the charms 
Of Clarisse, and Juliette, Celestine, and 
the rest ; 
"Who sits, cold as a stone, with a girl 
in his arms. 

Once, twice, and three times, he has 

heard it repeated ; 
And louder, and fiercer, each time the 

sound falls. 
And his cheek is death pale, 'mid the 

others so heated ; 
There's a step at the door, too, his 

fancy recalls. 

And he rises . . . (just so an automaton 
rises, — 
Some man of mechanics made up, — 
that must move 
In the way that the wheel moves within 
him ; — there lies his 
Sole path fixt before him, below and 
above). 

He rises . . . and, scarcely a glance cast- 
ing on her, 
Flings from him the beauty asleep on 
his shoulder ; 
Charles springs to his feet ; Eugene mut- 
ters of honor ; 
But there 's that in the stranger that 
awes each beholder. 

For the hue on his cheek, it is whiter 
than whiteness : 
The hair creeps on his head like a 
strange living thing. 
The lamp o'er the table has lost half its 
brightness ; 
Juliette cannot laugh ; Celestine can- 
not sing. 

He has opened the door in a silence un- 
broken : 
And the gaze of all eyes where he 
stands is fixt wholly : 
Not a hand is there raised ; not a word 
is there spoken : 
He has opened the door ; . . . and 
there comes through it slowly 

A woman, as pale as a dame on a tomb- 
stone, 
"With desolate violet eyes, open wide ; 



Her look, as she turns it, turns all in 
the room stone : 
She sits down on the sofa, the stranger 
beside. 

Her hair it is yellow, as moonlight on 
water 
"Which stones in some eddy torment 
into waves ; 
Her lips are as red as new blood spilt tn 
slaughter ; 
Her cheek like a ghost's seen by night 
o'er the graves. 

Her place by the taciturn guest she has 
taken ; 
And the glass at her side she has filled 
with Champagne. 
As she bows o'er the board, all the rev- 
ellers awaken. 
She has pledged her mute friend, and 
she fills up again. 

Clarisse has awaked ; and with shrieks 
leaves the table. 
Juliette wakes, and faints in the arms 
of Arnold. 
And Charles and Eugene, with what 
speed they are able. 
Are off to the club, where this tale 
shall be told. 

Celestine for her brougham, on the 
stairs, was appealing, 
"With hysterical sobs, to the surly con- 
cierge, 
"Whefi a ray through the doorway stole 
to her, revealing 
A sight that soon changed her appeal 
to "ia vierge." 

All the Ught-hearted friends from the 
chamber are fled : 
And the cafe itself has grown silent 
by this. 
From the dark street below, you can 
scarce hear a tread. 
Save the Gendarme's, who reigns there 
as gloomy as Dis. 

The shadow of night is beginning to flit : 
Through the gi-ay mndoAV shimmers 
the motionless town. 
The ghost and the stranger, together 
they sit 
Side by side at the table — the place 
is their owH. 



204 



THE WANDERER. 



They nod and change glances, that pale 
man and woman ; 
For they both are well known to each 
other : and then, 
Some ghosts have a look that 's so hor- 
ribly human. 
In the street you might meet them, 
and take them for men. 

"Thou art changed, my beloved! and 
the lines have grown stronger, 
/ And the curls have grown scanter, 
\ that meet on thy brow. 

> Ah, faithless ! and dost thou remember 
no longer 
The hour of our passion, the words of 
thy vow ? 

" Thy kiss, on my lips it is burning for- 
ever ! 
I cannot sleep calm, for my bed is so 
j cold. 

Embrace me ! close . . . closer ... let 
us part never. 
And let all be again as it once was of 
old ! " 

So she murmurs repiuingly ever. Her 
breath 
Lifts his hair like a night-wind in 
winter. And he . . . 
" Thy hand, Irene, is icy as death. 
But thy face is unchanged in its 
beauty to me." 

*"Tis so cold, my beloved one, down 

there, and so drear." 
"Ah, thy sweet voice, Irene, sounds 

hollow and strange ! " 
" 'T is the chills of the grave that have 

changed it, I fear : 
But the voice of my heart there's no 

chill that can change." 

"■ Ha ! thy pale cheek is flusht with a 
_ heat like my own. 
Is it breath, is it flame, on thy lips 
that is burning ? 
Ha ! thy heart flutters wild, as of old, 
'neath thy zone. 
And those cold eyes of thine fill with 
passionate yearning." 

Thus, embracing each other, they bend 
and they waver, 
And, laughing and weeping, converse. 
The pale ghost. 



As the wine warms the grave-worm with« 
in her, grown braver, 
Fills her glass to the brim, and pro 
poses a toast. 

"Here's a health to the glow-worm, 
Death's sober lamplighter, 
That saves from the darkness below 
the gravestone 
The tomb's pallid pictures ... the sad- 
der the brighter; 
Shapes of beauty each stony-eyed 
corpse there hath known : 

" Mere rough sketches of life, where a 
glimpse goes for all. 
Which the Master keeps (all the rest 
let the world have ! ) 
But though only rough-scrawled on 
the blank charnel wall. 
Is their truth the less sharp, that 't is 
sheathed in the grave ? 

" Here 's to Love ... the prime passion 
. . . the harp that we sung to 
In the orient of youth, in the days 
pure of pain ; 
The cup that we quaifed in : the stimip 
we sprung to. 
So light, ere the journey was made — 
and in vain ! 

"0 the life that we lived once ! the 
beaut}' so fair once ! 
Let them go ! wherefore weep for what 
tears could not save ? 
What old trick sets us aping the fools 
that we were once. 
And tickles our brains even under the 
grave ? 

" There 's a small stinging worm which 
the grave ever breeds 
From the folds of the shroud that 
around us is spread : 
There 's a little blind maggot that revels 
and feeds 
On the life of the living, the sleep of 
the dead. 

"To our friends ! . . . " But the full 
flood of dawn through the pane, 
Having slowly rolled down the huge 
street there unheard 
(While the great, new, blue sky, o'er the 
white Madeleine 
Was wide opening itself), from her lip 
washed the word ; 



IN FRANCE. 



205 



Washed her face faint and fainter ; while, 
dimmer and dimmer, 
In its seat, the pale form flickered out 
like a flame, 
As broader, and brighter, and fuller,' the 
glimmer 
Of day through the heat-clouded win- 
dow became. 

And the day mounts apace. Some one 
opens the door. 
In shuffles a waiter with sleepy red eyes : 
He stares at the cushions flung loose on 
the floor, 
On the bottles, the glasses, the plates, 
with surprise. 

Stranger stttl ! he sees seated a man at 
the table, 
"With his head on his hands : in a 
slumber he seems, 
So wild, and so strange, he no longer is 
able 
In silence to thrid through the path 
of his dreams. 

For he moans, and he mutters : he moves 
and he motions : 
To the dream that he dreams o'er his 
wine-cup he pledges. 
And his sighs sound, through sleep, like 
spent winds over ocean's 
Last verge, where the world hides its 
outermost edges. 

The gas-lamp falls sick in the tube : and 
so, dying. 
To the fumes of spilt wine, and cigars 
but half smoked. 
Adds the stench of its last gasp : chairs 
broken are lying 
All about o'er the cai'pet stained, lit- 
tered, and soaked. 

A touch starts the sleeper. He wakes. 
It is day. 
And the beam that dispels all the 
phantoms of night 
Thi'ough the rooms sends its kindly and 
comforting ray : 
The streets are new-peopled : the 
morning is bright. 

And the city 's so fair ! and the dawn 
breaks so brightly ! 
With gay flowers in the market, gay 
girls in the street. 



Whate'er the strange beings that visit 
us nightly. 
When Pai'is awakes, from her smile 
they retreat. 

I myself have, at morning, beheld them 
departing ; 
Some in masks, and in dominos, foot- 
ing it on ; 
Some like imps, some like fairies"; at 
cockcrow all starting, 
And speedily flitting from sight one 
by one. 

And that wonderful night-flower. Mem- 
ory, that, tearful. 
Unbosoms to darkness her heart full 
of dew. 
Folds her leaves round again, and from 
day shrinks up fearful 
In the cleft of her ruin, the shade of 
her yew. 

This broad daylight life 's strange enough : 
and wherever 
We wander, or walk ; in the club, in 
the streets ; 
Not a straw on the ground is too trivial 
to sever 
Each man in the crowd from the others 
he meets. 

Each walks with a spy or a jailer behind 
him 
(Some word he has spoken, some deed 
he has done) ; 
And the step, now and then, quickens, 
just to remind him, 
In the crowd, in the sun, that he is 
not alone. 

But 't is hard, when by lamplight, 'mid 
laughter and songs too. 
Those return, ... we have buried, and 
mourned for, and prayed for. 
And done with . . . and, free of the grave 
it belongs to. 
Some ghost drinks your health in the 
wine you have paid for. 

Wreathe the rose, Young Man ; pour 
the wine. What thou hast 
That enjoy all the days of thy youth. 
Spare thou naught. 
Yet beM'are ! ... at the board sits a 
ghost — 't is the Past ; 
In thy heart lurks a weird Necroman- 
cer — 't is Thought. 



206 



THE WANDEKER. 



THE CHESS-BOAED. 

My little love, do you remember, 

Ere we were grown so sadly wise, 
Those evenings in the bleak December, 
Curtained warm from the snowy weather, 
When you and I played chess together, 

Checkmated by each other's eyes ? 

Ah, still I see your soft white hand 
Hovering warm o'er Queen and Knight. 

Brave Pawns in valiant battle stand. 
The double Castles guard the wings : 
The Bishop, bent on distant things, 
Moves, sidling through the fight. 

Our fingers touch ; our glances meet, 

And falter ; falls your golden hair 

Against my cheek ; your bosom sweet 
Is heaving. Down the field, your Queen 
Eides slow her soldiery all between. 

And checks me unaware. 

Ah me ! the little battle 's done, 
Disperst is all its chivalry ; 
Full many a move, since then, have we 
'Mid Life's perplexing checkers made. 
And many a game with Fortune 
played, — 

What is it we have won ? 

This, this at least — if this alone ; — 
That never, never, never more. 
As in those old still nights of yore 

(Ere we were grown so sadly wise). 

Can you and I shut out the skies, 
Shut out the world, and wintry weather. 

And, eyes exchanging warmth with 
eyes. 
Play chess, as then we played, together ! 



SONG. 

If Sorrow have taught me anything, 

She hath taught me to weep for you ; 
And if Falsehood have left me a tear to 
shed 

For Truth, these tears are true. 
If the one star left by the morning 

Be dear to the dying night, 
If the late lone rose of October 

Be sweetest to scent and sight, 
If the last of the leaves in December 

Be dear to the desolate tree, 
Eemember, beloved, remember 

How dear is your beauty to me ! 

And more dear than the gold, is the silver 
Grief hath sown in that hair's young 
gold: 



And lovelier than youth is the language 
Of the thoughts that have made youth 
old; 
We must love, and unlove, and forget, 
dear — 
Fashion and shatter the spell 
Of how many a love in a life, dear — 

Ere life learns to love once and love well. 
Then what matters it, yesterday's sorrow ? 

Since I have outlived it — see ! 
And what matter the cares of to-morrow, 
Since you, dear, will share them with 
me? 

To love it is hard, and 't is harder 

Perchance to be loved again ; 
But you '11 love me, I know, now I love 
you. — 

What I seek I am patient to gain. 
To the tears I have shed, and regret not, 

What matter a few more tears ? 
Or a few days' waiting longer. 

To one that has waited for years ? 
Hush ! lay your head on my breast, there. 

Not a word ! . . . while I weep for 
your sake. 
Sleep, and forget me, and rest there : 

My heart will wait warm till you wake. 
For — if Sorrow have taught me any- 
thing 

She hath taught me to weep for you ; 
And if Falsehood have left me a tear to 
shed 

For Truth, these tears are true ! 



THE LAST REMONSTEANCE. 

Yes ! I am worse than thou didst once 
believe me. 
Worse than thou deem'st me now I 
cannot be — 
But say " the Fiend 's no blacker," . . . 
canst thou leave me ? 
Where wilt thou flee ? 

Where wilt thou bear the relics of the 
days 
Squandered round this dethroned love 
of thine ? 
Hast thou the silver and the gold to raise 
A new God's shrine ? 

Thy cheek hath lost its roundness and 
its bloom : 
Who will forgive those signs where 
tears have fed 



IN FRANCE. 



207 



On thy once lustrous eyes, — save he for 
whom 
Those tears were shed ? 

Know I not every grief whose course hath 
sown 
Lines on thy brow, and silver in thy 
hair ? 
Will new love learn the language, mine 
alone 
Hath graven there ? 

Despite the blemisht beauty of thy 
brow, 
Thou wouldst be lovely, couldst thou 
love again ; 
For Love renews the Beautiful : but thou 
Hast onty pain. 

How wilt thou bear from pity to im- 
plore 
What once those eyes from rapture 
could command ? 
How wilt thou stretch — who wast a 
Queen of j'ore — 
A suppliant's hand ? 

Even were thy heart content from love 
to ask 
No more than needs to keep it from 
the chill, 
Hast thou the strength to recommence 
the task 
Of pardoning still ? 

Wilt thou to one, exacting all that I 
Have lost the right to ask for, still 
extend 
Forgiveness on forgiveness, with that 
sigh 
That dreads the end ? 

Ah, if thy heart can pardon yet, why 
yet 
Should not its latest pardon be for 
me? 
For who will bend, the boon he seeks to 
get. 
On lowlier knee ? 

Where wilt thou find the unworthier 
heart than mine, 
That it may be more grateful, or more 
lowly ? 
To whom else, pardoning much, become 
divine 
By pardoning wholly ? 



Hath not thy forehead paled beneath my 
kiss? 
And through thy life have I not writ 
my name ? 
Hath not my soul signed thine ? . . . I 
gave thee bliss, 
If I gave shame : 

The shame, but not the bliss, where'ei 
thou goest. 
Will haunt thee yet : to me no shame 
thou hast : 
To me alone, what now thou art, thou 
knowest 
By what thou wast. 

What other hand will help thy heart to 
swell 
To raptures mine first taught it how 
to feel ? 
Or from the unchorded harp and vacant 
shell 
New notes reveal ? 

Ah, by my dark and sullen nature nurst. 
And rocked by passion on this stormy 
heart, 
Be mine the last, as thou wert mine the 
first ! 
We dare not part ! 

At best a fallen Angel to mankind, 
To me be still the seraph I have dared 

To show my hell to, and whose love re- 
signed 
Its pain hath shared. 

If, faring on together, I have fed 
Thy lips on poisons, they were sweet 
at least, 
Nor couldst thou thrive where h6lier Love 
bath spread 
His simpler feast. 

Change would be death. Could sever- 
ance from my side 
Bring thee repose, I would not bid 
thee stay. 
My love should meet, as calmly as my 
pride. 
That parting day. 

It may not be : for thou couldst not for- 
get me, — 
Not that my own is more than other 
natures, 



208 



THE WANDEREE. 



But that 't is different : and thou wouldst 
regret me 
'Mid purer creatures. 

Then, if love's first ideal now grows wan, 
And thou wilt love again, — again 
love me, 

For what I am : — no hero, but a man 
Still loving thee. 



SORCERY. 



You 're a milk-white Panther : 

1 'm a Genius of the air. 
You 're a Princess once enchanted ; 

That is why you seem so fair. 

For a crime untold, unwritten, 

That was done an age ago, 
I have lost my wings, and wander 

In the wilderness below. 

In a dream too long indulged, 

In a Palace by the sea. 
You were changed to what you are 

By a muttered sorcery. 

Your name came on my lips 

When I first looked in your eyes : 

At my feet you fawned, you knew me 
In despite of all disguise. 

The black elephants of Delhi 
Are the wisest of their kind, 

And the libbards of Soumatra 
Are full of eyes behind : 

But they guessed not, they divined not. 
They believed me of the earth, 

"When I walked among them, mourning 
For the region of my birth. 

Till I found you in the moonlight. 

Then at once I knew it all. 
You were sleeping in the sand here, 

But you wakened to my call. 

I knew why, in your slumber, 
You were moaning piteously : 

You heard a sound of harping 
From a Palace by the sea. 

Through the wilderness together 
"We must wander everywhere, 



Till we find the magic berry 

That shall make us what we were. 

'T is a berry sweet and bitter, 
I have heard ; there is but one ; 

On a tall tree, by a fountain, 
In the desert all alone. 

"When at last 't is found and eaten, 
"We shall both be what we were ; 

You, a Princess of the water, 
I, a Genius of the air. 

See ! the Occident is ilaring 
Far behind us in the skies, 

And our shadows float before us. 
Night is coming forth. Arise ! 



ADIEU, MIGNONNE, MA BELLE. 

Adieu, Mignonne, ma belle . . . when 
you are gone, , 

"Vague thoughts of you will wander, 
searching love 
Through this dim heart : through this 
dim room, Mignonne, 
Vague fragrance from your hair and 
dress, will move. 

How will you think of this poor heart 
to-morrow, 
This poor fond heart with all its joy 
in you ? 
Which you were fain to lean on, once, 
in sorrow, 
Though now you bid it such a light 
adieu. 

You '11 sing perchance ... "I passed a 
night of dreams 
Once, in an old inn's old worm-eaten 
bed, 
Passing on life's highway. How strange 
it seems. 
That never more I there shall lean, my 
head ! " 

Adieu, Mignonne, adieu, Mignonne, ma 
belle ! 
Ah, little witch, our greeting was so 
gay, 
Our love so painless, who 'd have thought 
"Farewell" 
Could ever be so sad a word to say ? 



m FRANCE. 



209 



I leave a thousand fond farewells with 
you : 
Some for your red wet lips, which 
were so sweet : 
Some for your darling eyes, so dear, so 
blue : 
Some for your wicked, wanton little 
feet : 

But for your little heart, not yet 
awake, — 
"What can I leave your little heart, 
Miguonne ? 
It seems so fast asleep, I fear to break 
The poor thing's slumber. Let it 
still sleep on ! 



TO MIGNONNE. 

At morning, from the sunlight 
I shall miss your sunny face. 

Leaning, laughing, on ray shoulder 
With its careless infant grace ; 
And your hand there, 

With its rosy, inside color, 
And the sparkle of its rings ; 

And your soul from this old chamber 
Missed in fifty little things, 
When I stand there. 

And the roses in the garden 
Droop stupid all the day, — 

Red, thirsty mouths wide open, 
With not a word to say ! 
Their last meaning 

Xs all faded, like a fragrance. 

From the languishing late flowers. 
With your feet, your slow white move- 
ments, 
And your face, in silent hours, 
O'er them leaning. 

And, in long, cool summer evenings, 

I shall never see you, drest 
In those pale violet colors 

Which suit your sweet face best. 
Here 's jj'our glove, child, 

Soiled and empty, as you left it. 

Yet your hand's warmth seems to stay 
In it- still, as though this moment 
You had drawn your hand away ; 
Like your love, child, 
14 



Which still stays about my fancy. 

See this little, silken boot. — 
What a plaything ! was there ever 

Such a slight and slender foot ? 
Is it strange now 

How that, when your lips are nearest 

To the lips they feed upon 
For a summer time, till bees sleep. 

On a sudden you are gone ? 

What new change now 

Sets you sighing . . . eyes uplifted . 

To the starry night above ? 
"Godis great. . . thesoul's immortal. . . 

Must we die, though ! ... Do you love ? 
One kiss more, then : 

"Life might end now !" . . . And next 
moment 
With those wicked little feet, 
You have vanished, — like a Fairy 
From a fountain in the heat. 
And all 's o'er, then. 

Well, no matter ! . . . hearts are breaking 

Every day, but not for you, 
Little wanton, ever making 

Chains of rose, to break them through. 
I would mourn you, 

But your red smile was too warm. Sweet, 
And your little heart too cold. 

And your blue eyes too blue merely. 
For a strong, sad man to scold. 
Weep, or scorn, you. . 

For that smile's soft, transient sunshine 
At my hearth, when it was chill, 

I shall never do j'our name wrong. 
But think kindly of you still ; 
And each moment 

Of your pretty infant angers, 

(Who could help but smile at . . . 
when 
Those small feet would stamp our love 
out ?) 
Why, I pass them now, as then, 
Without comment. 

Only, here, when I am searching 

For the book I cannot find, 
I must sometimes pass your boudoir. 

Howsoever disinclined ; 

And must meet there 



210 



THE WANDERER. 



The gold bird-cage in the window, 
Where no bird is singing now ; 

The small sofa and the footstool, 

Where I miss ... 1 know not how . , . 
Your young feet there, 

Silken-soft in each quaint slipper ; 

And the jewelled writing-case, 
Where you never more will write now ; 

And the vision of your face, 
Just turned to me : — 

I would save this, if I could, child, 
But that 's all. . . . September 's here ! 

I must write a book : read twenty : 
Learn a language . . . what 's to fear ? 
Who grows gloomy 

Being free to work, as I am ? 

Yet these' autumn nights are cold. 
How I wonder how you '11 pass them ! 

Ah, . . . could all be as of old ! 
But 't is best so. 

All good things must go for better. 
As the primrose for the rose. 

Is love free ? why so is life, too ! 
Holds the grave fast ? . . . I suppose 
Things must rest so. 



COMPENSATION. 

When the days are silent all 

Till the drear light falls ; 
And the nights pass with the pall 

Of Love's funerals ; 
When the heart is weighed with years; 
And the eyes too M'eak for tears ; 
And life like death appears ; 

Is it nought, soul of mine. 

To hear i' the windy track 
A voice with a song divine 

Calling thy footsteps back 
To the land thou lovest best, 
Toward the Garden in the West 
Where thou hast once been blest ? 

Is it nought, aching brow, 

To feel in the dark hour. 
Which came, though called, so slow. 

And, though loathed, yet lingers 
slower, 
A hand upon thy pain, 
Lovingly laid again, 
Smoothing the raffled brain. ? 



love, my own and only ! 

The seraphs shall not see 
By my looks that life was lonely ; 

But that 't was blest by thee. 
If few lives have been more lone. 
Few have more rapture known. 
Than mine and thine, my own ! 

When the lamp burns dim and dim- 
mer ; 

And the curtain close is drawn ; 
And the twilight seems to glimmer 

With a supernatural dawn ; 
And the Genius at the door 
Turns the torch down to the floor, 
Till the world is seen no more ; 

In the doubt, the dark, the fear, 

'Mid the spirits come to take thee, 
Shall mine to thine be near. 
And my kiss the first to wake 
thee. 
Meanwhile, in life's December, 
On the wind that strews the ember, 
Shall a voice still moan ..." Remem- 
ber ! " 



TRANSLATIONS FROM PETER 
RONSARD. 

" VOICI LE BOIS QUE MA SAINCTE AN- 
GELETTE." 

HePvE is the wood that freshened to her 
song ; 
See here, the flowers that keep her 

footprints yet ; 
Where, all alone, my saintly Angel- 
ette 
Went wandering, with her maiden 
thoughts, along. 

Here is the little rivulet where she 
stopped ; 
And here the greenness of the grass 

shows where 
She lingered through it, searching here 
and there 
Those daisies dear, which in her breast 
she dropped. 

Here did she sing, and here she wept, 

and here 
Her smile came back ; and here I seem 

to hear 
Those faint half-words with which my 

thoughts are rife ; 



IN FRANCE. 



211 



Here did slie sit ; here, cliildlike, did 
she dance, 

To some vague impulse of her own ro- 
mance — 
Ah, Love, on all these thoughts, winds 
out my life ! 

"CACHE POUR CETTE NUICT." 

Hide, for a night, thy horn, good Moon ! 

Fair fortune 

For this shall keep Endymion ever prest 

Deep - dreaming, amorous, on thine 

argent breast. 

Nor ever shall enchanter thee importune. 

Hateful to me the day ; most sweet the 
night k 
I fear the myriad meddling eyes of day ; 
But courage comes with night. Close, 
close, I pray. 
Your curtains, dear dark skies, on my 
delight ! 

Thou too, thou Moon, thou too hast felt 

love's power ! 
Pan, with a white fleece, won thee for an 

hour ; 
And you, sidereal Signs in yonder blue, 

Favor the fire to which my heart is moved. 

Forget not, Signs, the greater part of you 

Was only set in heaven for having loved ! 

"PAGE SUY MOY." 

Follow, my Page, where the green grass 
embosoms 
The enamelled Season's freshest-fallen 

dew ; 
Then liome, and my still house with 
handfuls strew 
Of frail-lived April's newliest nurtured 
blossoms. 

Take from the wall now, my song-tuned 
Lyre; 
Here will I sit and charm out the 

sweet pain 
Of a dark eye whose light hath burned 
my brain. 
The unloving loveliness of my desire ! 

And here my ink, and hei-e my papers, 

place : — 
A hundred leaves of white, whereon to 

trace 
A hundred words of desultory woe — 



"Words which shall last, like gi'aven dia- 
monds, sure ; — 
That, some day hence, a future race 
may know 

And ponder on the pain which I endure. 

"LES ESPICES SONT A CERES." 

Ceres hath her harvest sweet : 
Chlora's is the young green grass : 

Woods for Fauns with cloven feet : 
His green laurel Phoebus has : 

Minerva has her Olive-tree : 

And the Pine 's for Cybele. 

Sweet sounds are for Zephyr's wings : 
Sweet fruit for Pomona's bosom : 

For the Nymphs are crystal springs 
And for Flora bud and blossom : 

But sighs and tears, and sad. ideas, 

These alone are Cytherea's. 

"MJ DOUCE JOUVENCE." '• 

My sweet youth now is all done ; 
The strength and the beauty are gone. 
The tooth now is black, and the head 
now is white. 
And the nerves now are loosed : in the 

veins 
Only water (not blood now) remains, 
Where the pulse beat of old with de- 
light. 

Adieu, my lyre, adieu, 
You sweet women, my lost loves, and you 
Each dead passion ! . . . The end creep- 
eth nigher. 
Not one pastime of yoiith has kept pace 
With my age. Nought remains in their 
place 
But the bed, and the cup, and the fire. 

My head is confused with low fears. 
And sickness, and too many years ; 

Some care in each corner I meet — 
And, wherever I linger or go, 
I turn back, and look after, to know 

If the Death be still dogging my feet : — 

Dogging me down the dark stair, 
Which windeth, I cannot tell where, 

To some Pluto that opens forever 
His cave to all comers — Alas ! 
How easily down it all pass. 

And return from it — never, ah, never I 



212 



THE WANDERER. 



BOOK III. -IN EE'GLAI^D. 



THE ALOE. 

A STRANGER Sent from burning lands, 
In realms where buzz and mutter yet 

Old gods, with hundred heads and hands, 
On jewelled thrones of jet, — 

(Old gods as old as Time itself,) 
And, in a hot and level calm. 

Recline o'er many a sandy shelf 
Dusk forms beneath the palm, — 

To Lady Eve, who dwells beside 
The river-meads, and oak-trees tall, 

Whose dewy shades encircle wide 
Her old Baronial Hall, 

An Indian plant with leaves like horn. 
And, all along its stubborn spine. 

Mere humps, with angry spike and thorn 
Armed like the porcupine. 

In midst of which one sullen bud 

Surveyed the world, with head aslant. 

High -throned, and looking like the god 
Of this strange Indian plant. 

A stubborn plant, from looking cross 
It seemed no kindness could retrieve ! 

But for his sake whose gift it was 
It pleased the Lady Eve. 

She set it on the terraced walk, 

Within her own fair garden-ground ; 

And every morn and eve its stalk 
Was duly watered round. 

And every eve and morn, the while 
She tended this uncourteous thing, 

I stood beside her, — watched her smile. 
And often heard her sing. 

The roses I at times would twist 
To deck her hair, she oft forgot ; 

But never that dark aloe missed 
The daily watering-pot. 

She seemed so gay, — I felt so sad, — 
Her laugh but made me frown the more : 

For each light word of hers I had 
Some sharp reply in store. 



Until she laughed . . . "This aloe shows 
A kindlier natiire than your own "... 

Ah, Eve, you little dreamed what foes 
The plant and I had grown ! 

At last, one summer night, when all 
The garden-flowers were dreaming still, 

And still the old Baronial Hall, 
The oak-trees on the hill, 

A loud and sudden sound there stirred, 
As when a thunder-cloud is torn ; 

Such thunder-claps are only heard 
When little gods are born. 

The echo went from place to place, 
And wakened every early sleeper. 

Some said that poachers in the chase 
Had slain a buck — or keeper. 

Some hinted burglars at the door : 
Some questioned if it had not light- 
ened : 

While all the maids, as each one swore, 
From their seven wits were frightened. 

The peacocks screamed, and everj' rook 
Upon the elms at roost did caw : 

Each inmate straight the house forsook : 
They searched — and, last, — they saw 

That sullen bud to flower had burst 
Upon the sharp-leaved aloe there ; — 

A wondrous flower, whose breath disperst 
Rich odors on the air. 

A flower, colossal — dazzling white. 
And fair as is a Sphinx's face. 

Turned broadly to the moon by night 
From some vast temple's base. 

Yes, Eve ! your aloe paid the pains 
With which its sullen growth you 
nurst. 

But ah ! my nature yet remains 
As churlish as at first. 

And yet, and yet — it might have proved 
Not all unworth your heart's approv- 
ing. 

Ah, had I only been beloved, — 
(Beloved as I was loving ! ) 



IN ENGLAND. 



213 



I might have been . . . how much, how 
much, 

I am not now, and shall not be ! 
One gentle look, one tender touch, 

Had done so much for me ! 

I too, perchance, if kindly tended. 
Had roused the napping generation, 

With something novel, strange, and 
splendid, 
Deserving admiration : 

For all the while there grew, and grew 
A germ, — a bud, within my bosom : 

No flower, fair Eve ! — for, thanks to you. 
It never came to blossom. 



"MEDIO DE FONTE LEPOEUM 
SURGIT AMARI ALIQUID." 

Lucretius. 

We walked about at Hampton Court, 

Alone in sunny weather. 
And talked — half earnest, and half 
sport. 

Linked arm in arm together. 

I pressed her hand upon the steps. 

Its warmest light the sky lent. 
She sought the shade : I sought her lips : 

We kissed : and then were silent, 

Clare thought, no doubt, of many things, 
Besides the kiss I stole there ; — 

The sun, and sunny founts in rings, 
The bliss of soul with soul there. 

The bonnet, fresh from France, she wore. 
My praise of how she wore it. 

The anns above the carven door. 
The orange-trees before it ; — 

But I could only think, as, mute 
I watched her happy smile there. 

With rising pain, of this curst boot. 
That pinched me all the while there. 



THE DEATH OF KING HACON. 

It was Odin that whispered in Vingolf, 
" Go forth to the heath by the sea ; 

Find Hacon before the moon rises, 
And bid him to supper with me." 



They go forth to choose from the Princes 
Of Yngvon, and summons from light 

A man who must perish in battle, 

And sup where the gods sup to-night. 

Leaning over her brazen spear, Gondula 
Thus bespake her companions, "The 
feast 
Of the gods shall, in Vingolf, this 
evening, 
ye Daughters of War, be increast. 

" For Odin hath beckoned unto me. 
For Odin hath whispered me forth. 

To bid to his supper King Hacon 
With the half of the hosts of the 
North." 

Their horses gleamed white through the 
vapor : 
In the moonlight their corselets did 
shine : 
As they wavered and whispered together, 
And fashioned their solemn design. 

Hacon heard them discoursing — "Why 
hast thou 

Thus disposed of the battle so soon ? 
0, were we not worthy of conquest ? 

Lo ! we die by the rise of the moon." 

" It is not the moon that is rising. 
But the glory which penetrates death. 

When heroes to Odin are summoned : 
Rise, Hacon, and stand on the heath ! 

" It is we," she replied, "that have given 
To thy pasture the flower of the fight, 

It is we, it is we that have scattered 
Thine enemies yonder in flight. 

"Come now, let us push on our horses 
Over yonder green worlds in the east, 

Where the great gods are gathered to- 
gether, 
And the tables are piled for the feast. 

" Betimes to give notice to Odin, 
Who waits in his sovran abodes, 

That the King to his palace is coming 
This evening to visit the gods." 

Odin rose when he heard it, and with him 
Rose the gods, every god to his feet. 

He beckoned Hermoder and Brago, 
They came to him, each from his 
seat. 



214 



THE WANDEEER. 



" Go forth, my sons, to King Hacon, 
And meet him and greet hira from all, 

A King that we know by his valor 
Is coming to-night to our hall." 

Then faintly King Hacon approaches. 
Arriving from battle, and sore 

With the wounds that yet bleed through 
his ai-mor 
Bedabbled and dripping with gore. 

His visage is pallid and awful 

"With the awe and the pallor of death. 
Like the moon that at midnight arises 

Where the battle lies strewn on the 
heath. 

To hira spake Hermoder and Brago, 
"We meet thee and greet thee from 
all. 

To the gods thou art known by thy valor, 
And they bid thee a guest to their hall. 

"Come hither, come hither. King Hacon, 
And join those eight brotliers of thine, 

Who already, awaiting thy coming, 
With the gods in Walhala recline. 

" And loosen, Hacon, thy corselet, 
For thy wounds are yet ghastly to see. 

Go pour ale in the circle of heroes. 
And drink, for the gods drink to thee." 

But he answered, the hero, " I never 
Will part with the armor I wear. 

Shall a warrior stand before Odin 

Unshamed, without helmet and spear ?" 

Black Fenris, the wolf, the destroyer, 
Shall arise and break loose from his 
chain 

Before that a hero like Hacon 
Shall stand in the battle again. 



"CARPE DIEM." 

Horace. 
To-MOEEOW is a day too far 

To trust, whate'er the day be. 
We know, a little, what we are. 

But who knows what he may be ? 

The oak that on the mountain grows 

A goodly ship may be, 
Next year ; but it is as well (who knows ?) 

May be a gallows-tree. 



'Tis God made man, no doubt, — not 

Chance : 
He made us, great and small ; 
But, being made, 't is Circumstance 
That finishes us aU. 

The Author of this world's great plan 

The same results will draw 
From human life, however man 

May keep, or break. His law. 

The Artist to his Art doth look ; 

And Art's great laws exact 
That those portrayed in Nature's Book, 

Should freely move and act. 

The moral of the work unchanged 

Endures eternally, 
Howe'er by human wills arranged 

The work's details may be. 

" Give us this day our daily bread. 

The morrow shall take heed 
Unto itself." The Master said 

No more. No more we need. 

To-morrow cannot make or mar 
To-day, whate'er the day be : 

Nor can the men which now we are 
Foresee the men we may be. 



THE FOUNT OF TRUTH. 

It was the place by legends told. 

I read the tale when yet a child. 
The castle on the mountain hold, 

The woodland in the wild. 

The wrecks of unremembered days 
Were heaped around. It was the 
hour 
When bold men fear, and timorous 
fays 
Grow bold, and know their power. 

The month was in the downward year. 
The breath of Autumn chilled the 

sky : 
And useless leaves, too early sere, 
Muttered and eddied by. 

It seemed that I was wending back 
Among the ruins of my youth, 

Along a wild night-haunted track 
To seek the Fount of Truth. 



IN ENGLAND. 



215 



The Fount of Truth, — that wondrous 
fount ! 

Its solemn sound I seemed to hear 
Wind-borne adown the clouded mount, 

Desolate, cold, and clear. 

By clews long lost, and found again 
I know not how, my course was led 

Through lands remote from living men. 
As life is from the dead. 

Yet up that wild road, here and there. 
Large, awful footprints did I meet : 

Footprints of gods perchance they were, 
Prints — not of human feet. 

The mandrake underneath my foot 
Gave forth"* shriek of angry pain. 

I heard the roar of some wild brute 
Prowling the windy plain. 

I reached the gate. I blew with power 
A blast upon the darkness wide. 

"Who art thou ?" from the gloomy tower 
The sullen warder cried. 

"A Pilgi-im to the Fount of Truth." 
He laughed a laugh of scornful spleen. 

"Art thou not from the Land of Youth ? 
Eeport where thou hast been." 

" The Land of Youth ! an alien race 
There, in my old dominions, reign ; 

And, with them, one in whose false 
face 
I will not gaze again. 

" From to and fro the world I come, 
Where I have fared as exiles fare, 

Mocked by the memories of home 
And homeless everywhere. 

"The snake that slid through Paradise 
Yet on my pathway slides and slips : 

The apple plucked in Eden twice 
Is yet upon my lips. 

" I can report the world is still 
Where it hath been since it began : 

And Wisdom, with bewildered will. 
Is still the same sick man, 

" Whom yet the self-same visions fool, 
The self-same nightmares haunt and 
scare. 

Folly still breeds the Public Fool, 
Knowledge increaseth care : 



" Joy hath his tears, and Grief her smile ; 

And still both tears and smiles deceive. 
And in the Valley of the Nile 

I hear — and I believe — 

" The Fiend and Michael, as of yore,. 

Yet wage the ancient war : but how 
This strife will end at last, is more 

Than our new sages know." 

I heard the gate behind me close. 

It closed with a reluctant wail. 
Roused by the sound from her repose 

Started the Porteress pale : 

In pity, or in scorn . . . "Forbear, 
Madman," she cried, . . . "thy search 
for Truth. 

The cui'l is in thy careless hair. 
Eeturn to Love and Youth. 

"What lured thee here, through dark, 
and doubt. 
The many-periUed prize to win ? " — 
"The dearth" ... I said ... "of all 
without. 
The thirst of all within. 

" Age comes not Avith the wrinkled brow 
But earlier, with the ravaged heart ; 

Full oft hath fallen the winter snow 
Since Love from me did part. 

"Long in diy places, void of cheer, 
Long have I roamed. These features 
scan : 

If magic lore be thine, look here, 
Behold the Talisman ! " 

I crossed the court. The bloodhound 
bayed 

Behind me from the outer wall. 
The drowsy grooms my call obeyed 

And lit the haunted hall. 

They brought me horse, and lance, and 
helm. 
They bound the buckler on my breast. 
Spread the weird chart of that wild 
realm, 
And armed me for the quest. 

Uprose the Giant of the Keep. 

"Rash fool, ride on !" ... I heard 
him say, 
" The night is late, the heights are steep, 

And Truth is far away ! " 



216 

And 



THE WANDERER 

the echoes 



. . "Far away !" 

fell 

Behind, as from that grisly hold 
I turned. No tongue of man may 

tell 
What mine must leave untold. 

The Fount of Truth, — that wondrous 
fount ! 

Far off 1 heard its waters play. 
But ere I scaled the solemn mount, 

Dawn broke. The trivial day 

To its accustomed course flowed back, 
And all the glamour faded round. 

Is it forever lost, — that track ? 
Or — was it never found ? 



MIDGES. 

She is talking sesthetics, the dear clever 
creature ! 
Upon Man, and his functions, she 
speaks with a smile. 
Her ideas are divine upon Art, upon 
Nature, 
The Sublime, the Heroic, and Mr. 
Carlyle. 

I no more am found worthy to join in 
the talk, now ; 
So I follow with my surreptitious 
cigar ; 
While she leads our poetical friend up 
the walk, now, 
Who quotes Wordsworth and praises 
her " Thoughts on a Star." 

Meanwhile, there is dancing in yonder 
green bower 
A swarm of young midges. They 
dance high and low. 
'T is a sweet little species that lives but 
one hour, 
And the eldest was born half an hour 



One impulsive young midge I hear ar- 
dently pouring 
In the ears of a shy little wanton in 
gauze. 

His eternal devotion ; his ceaseless ador- 

.ing; 
Which shall last till the Universe 
breaks from its laws : 



His passion is not, he declares, the mere 
fever 
Of a rapturous moment. It knows no 
control : 
It will burn in his breast through exist- 
ence forever, 
Immutably fixed in the deeps of the 
soul ! 

She wavers : she flutters : ; . . male 
midges are fickle : 
Dare she trust him her future ? . . . 
she asks with a sigh : 
He implores, . . . and a tear is beginnin; 
to trickle : 
She is weak : they embrace, and . . . 
the lovers pass by. 

While they pass Tne, down here on a 
rose leaf has lighted 
A pale midge, his feelers all drooping 
and torn : 
His existence is withered ; its future is 
blighted : 
His hopes are betrayed : and his breast 
is forlorn. 

By the midge his heart trusted his heart 
is deceived, now 
In the virtue of midges no more he 
believes : 
From love in its falsehood, once wildly 
believed, now 
He w-ill bury his desolate life in the 
leaves. 

His friends would console him . . . the 
noblest and sagest 
Of midges have lield that a midge 
lives again. 
In Eternity, say they, the strife thou 
now wagest 
With sorrow shall cease . . . but their 
words are in vain ! 

Can Eternity bring back the seconds now 
wasted 
In hopeless desire? or restore to his 
breast 
The beltef he has lost, with the bliss he 
once tasted, 
Embracing the midge that his being 
loved best ? 

His friends would console him . . . life* 

yet is before him ; 

Maijy hundred long seconds he still; 

has to live : 



IN ENGLAND. 



217 



In the state yet a mighty career spreads 
before him : 
Let him seek in the great world of 
action to strive ! 

There is Fame ! there 's Ambition ! and, 
gi'ander than either, 
There is Freedom ! . . . the progress 
and march of the race ! . . . 
But to Freedom his breast beats no 
longer, and neither 
Ambition nor action her loss can replace. 

If the time had been spent in acquiring 
sesthetics 
I have squandered in learning this 
language of midges. 
There might, for my friend in her peri- 
patetics. 
Have been now two asses to help o'er 
the bridges. 

As it is, ... I '11 report her the whole 
conversation. 
It would have been longer ; but, some- 
how or other 
(In the midst of that misanthrope's 
long lamentation), 
A midge in my right eye became a 
young mother. 

Since my friend is so clever, I 'U ask her 
to tell me 
Why the least living thing (a mere 
midge in the egg !) 
Can make a man's tears flow, as now it 
befell me . . . 
you dear clever woman, explain it, 
-'-I I beg ! 

' w^ ■ 

THE LAST TIME THAT I MET 
LADY KUTH. 

There are some things hard to under- 
stand. 
help me, my God, to trust in thee ! 
But I never shall forget her soft white 
hand. 
And her eyes when she looked at me. 

It is hard to pray the very same prayer 
Which once at our mother's knee we 
prayed — 
When, where we trusted our whole 
heart, there 
Our trust hath been betrayed. 



I swear that the milk-white muslin so 
light 
On her virgin breast, where it lay 
demure. 
Seemed to be toucht to a purer white 
By the touch of a breast so pure. 

I deemed her the one thing undefded 
By the air we breathe, in a world of 
sin: 

The truest, the tenderest, purest child 
A man ever trusted in ! 

When she blamed me (she, with her fair 
child's face !) 
That never with her to the Church I 
went 
To partake of the Gospel of truth and 
grace, 
And the Christian sacrament. 

And I said I would go for her own sweet 
sake. 
Though it was but herself I should 
worship there, 
How that happy child's face strove to 
take 
On its dimples a serious air ! 

I remember the chair she would set for 
me, 
By the flowers, when all the house 
was gone 
To drive in the Park, and I and she 
Were left to be happy alone. 

There she leaned her head on my knees, 
my Ruth, 
With the primrose loose in her half- 
, closed hands : 
And'^I told her tales of my wandering 
youth 
In the far fair foreign lands. — 

The last time I met her was here in 

town, 

At a fancy ball at the Duchess of D., 

On the stairs, where her husband was 

handing her down. 

— There we met, and she talked to me. 

She, with powder in hair, and patch on 
chin, 
And I, in the garb of a pilgrim Priest, 
And between us both, without and 
within, 
A hundred years at least ! 



218 



THE WANDERER. 



We talked of the House, and the late 
long rains, 
And the crush at the French Ambas- 
sador's ball, 
And . . . well, I have not blown out my 
brains. 
You see I can laugh. That is all. 



^ MATRIMONIAL COUNSELS. 

You are going to marry my pretty rela- 
tion. 
My dove-like young cousin, so soft in 
the eyes, 
You are entering on life's settled dis- 
simulation. 
And, if you 'd be happy, in season be 
wise. 

Take my counsel. The more that, in 
church, you are tempted 
To yawn at the sermon, the more 
you '11 attend. 
The more you 'd from milliner's bills be 
exempted. 
The more on your wife's little wishes 
you '11 spend. 

You '11 be sure, every Christmas, to send 
to the rector 
A dozen of wine, and a hamper or 
two. 
The more your wife plagues you, the 
more you '11 respect her. 
She '11 be pleasing your friend, if she 's 
not plaguing you. 

For women of course, like ourselves, 
need emotion ; 
And happy the husband, whose failings 
afford 
To the wife of his heart, such good 
cause for commotion. 
That she seeks no excitement, save 
plaguing her lord. 

Above all, you '11 be careful that nothing 
offends, too, 
Your wife's lady's maid, though she 
give herself airs. 
With the friend of a friend it is well to 
be friends too. 
And especially so, when that friend 
lives up stairs. 



Under no provocation you '11 ever avow 
yourself 
A little put out, when you 're kept at 
the door. 
And you never, I scarcely need say, will 
allow yourself 
To call your wife's mother a vulgar 
old bore. 

However she dresses, you '11 never sug- 
gest to her 
That her taste, as to colors, could 
scarcely be worse, 
Of the rooms in your house, you will 
give up the best to her. 
And you never will ask for the car- 
riage, of course. 

If, at times with a doubt on the soul 
and her future. 
Revelation and reason, existence 
should trouble you. 
You '11 be always on guard to keep care- 
fully mute your 
Ideas on the subject, and read Dr. W. 

Bring a shawl with you, home, when you 
come from the Club, sir. 
Or a ring, lest your wife, when you 
meet her, should pout ; 
And don't fly in a rage and behave like 
a cub, sir. 
If you find that the fire, like yourself, 
has gone out. 

In eleven good instances out of a dozen, 
'T is the husband 's a cur, when the 
wife is a cat. 
She is meekness itself, my soft-eyed 
little cousin. 
But a wife has her rights, and I 'd 
have you know that. 

Keep my counsel. Life's struggles are 
brief to be borne, friend. 
In Heaven there 's no marriage nor 
giving in marriage. 
When Death comes, think how truly 
your widow will mourn, friend. 
And your worth not the best of your 
friends will disparage ! 



SEE-SAW. 

She was a harlot, and I was a thief : 
But we loved each other beyond belief : 



m ENGLAND. 



219 



She lived in the garret, and I in the 

kitchen, 
And love was all that we both were rich 

in. 

When they sent her at last to the hos- 
pital, 
Both day and night my tears did fall ; 
They fell so fast that, to dry their grief, 
I borrowed my neighbor's handkerchief. 

The world, which, as it is brutally taught, 
Still judges the act in lieu of the thought, 
Found my hand in my neighbor's pocket. 
And clapped me, at once, under chain and 
locket. 

"When th^ asked me about it, I told 

them plain. 
Love it was that had turned my brain ; 
How should I heed where my hand had 

been, 
When my heart was dreaming of Celes- 

tinel 

Twelve friends were so struck by my 
woful air. 

That they sent me abroad for change of 
air : 

And, to prove me the kindness of their 
intent, 

They sent me at charge of the Govern- 
ment. 

When I came back again, '— whom, think 

you, 1 meet 
But Celestine, here, in Regent Street ? 
In a carriage adorned with a coronet, 
. And a dress, all flounces, and lace, and 

jet: 

For her carriage drew up to the book- 
seller's door, 

Where they publish those nice little 
books for the poor : 

I took off my hat : and my face she 
knew, 

And gave me — a sermon by Mr. Bellew. 

But she gave me (God bless her !) along 
with the book. 

Such a sweet sort of smile, such a heav- 
enly look. 

That, as long as I live, I shall never for- 
get 

Celestine, in her coach with the earl's 
coronet. 



There 's a game that men play at in great 

London-town ; 
Whereby some must go up, sir, and some 

must go down : 
And, since the mud sticks to your coat 

if you fall. 
Why, the strongest among us keep close 

to the wall. 

But some day, soon or late, in my shoes 

I shall stand. 
More exalted than any great Duke in 

the land ; 
A clean shirt on my back, and a rose in 

my coat. 
And a collar conferred by the Queen 

round my thi'oat. 

And I know that my Celestine will not 

forget 
To be there, in her coach with my lord's 

coronet : 
She will smile to me then, as she smiled 

to me now : 
I shall nod to her gayly, and make her 

my bow ; — 

Before I rejoin all those famous old 
thieves 

Whose deeds have immortalized Rome, 
sir, and Greece : 

Whose names are inscribed upon His- 
tory's leaves. 

Like my own on the books of the City 
Police ; — 

Alexander, and Csesar, and other great 
robbers, 

Who once tried to pocket the whole uni- 
verse : 

Not to speak of our own parliamentary 
jobbers. 

With their hands, bless them all, in the 
popular purse ! 



BABYLONIA. 

Enough of simpering and grimace ! 
Enough of damning one's soul for 
nothing ! 
Enough of Vacuity trimmed with lace ! 
And Poverty proud of her purple cloth- 
ing ! 
In Babylon, whene'er there 's a wind 
(Whether . it blow rain, or whether it 
blow sand), 



220 



THE WANDEREK. 



The weathercocks change their mighty 
mind ; 
And the weathercocks are forty thou- 
sand. 
Forty thousand weathercocks, 

Each well-minded to keep his place, 
Turning about in the great and small 
ways ! 
Each knows, whatever the weather's 
shocks. 
That the wind will never blow in his 
face ; 
And in Babylon the wind blows al- 
ways. 

I cannot tell how it may strike you, 
But it strikes me now, for the first 
and last time. 
That there may be better things to do, 
Than watching the weathercocks for 
pastime. 
And I wish I were out of Babylon, 

Out of sight of column and steeple, 
Out of fashion and form, for one. 

And out of the midst of this double- 
faced people. 
Enough of catgut ! Enough of the sight 
Of the dolls it sets dancing all the night ! 
For there is a notion come to me. 

As here, in Babylon, I am lying, 
That far away, over the sea. 

And under another moon and star, 
Braver, more beautiful beings are dying 
(Dying, not dancing, dying, dying !) 
To a music nobler far. 

Full well I know that, before it came 
To inhabit this feeble, faltering fi-ame. 
My soul was weary ; and, ever since 
then. 
It has seemed to me, in the stir and 
bustle 
Of this eager world of women and men. 
That my life was tired before it began, 
That even the child had fatigued the man. 
And brain and heart have done their 
part 
To wear out sinew and muscle. 

Yet, sometimes, a wish has come to me, 
To wander, wander, I know not where, 

Out of the sight of all that I see. 

Out of the hearing of all that I hear ; 

"Where only the tawny, bold, wild beast 

Roams his realms ; and find, at least. 
The strength which even the beast 
finds there, 



A joy, though but a savage jo}'' ; — 

Were it only to find the food I need. 
The scent to track, and the force tc de- 
stroy. 
And the very appetite to feed ; 
The bliss of the sense without the 

thought, 
And the freedom, for once in my life, 
from aught 
That fills my life with care. 

And never this thought hath so wildly 
crost 
My mind, -with its wildering, strange 
temptation, 
As just when I was enjoying the most 
The blessings of what is called Civiliza- 
tion : — 
The glossy boot which tightens the foot ; 
The club at which my friend was black- 
balled 
(I am sorry, of course, but one must 
be exclusive) ; 
The yellow kid glove whose shape I ap- 
prove. 
And the journal in which I am kindly 
called 
Whatever 's not libellous — only 
abusive : 
The ball to which I am careful to go, 
Wheie the folks are so cool, and the 

rooms are so hot'; 
The opera, which shows one what 
music — is not ; 
And the simper from Lady . . . but why 
should you know ? 

Yet, I am a part of the things I despise, 
Since my life is bound by their com- 
mon span : 
And each idler I meet, in square or 
in street, 
Hath within him what all that 's with- 
out him belies, — 
The miraculous, infinite heart of man, 
With its countless capabilities ! 
The sleekest guest at the general feast. 

That at every sip, as he sups, says grace, 
Hath in him atouch of the untamed beast; 
And change of nature is change of place. 
The judge on the bench, and the scamp 
at the dock. 
Have, in each of them, much that is 
common to both ; 
Each is part of the parent stock, 

And their difference comes of their 
, different cloth. . . 



IN ENGLAND. 



221 



'Twixt the Seven Dials and Exeter Hall 
The gulf that is fixed is not so wide : 
And the fool that, last year, at Her 
Majesty's Ball, 
Sickened me so with his simper of 
pride, 
Is the liero now heard of, the first on the 
wall. 
With the bayonet-wound in his side. 

0, for the times which were (if any 
Time be heroic) heroic indeed ! 
When the men were few, 
And the deeds to do 
Were mighty, and many. 

And each man in his hand held a 
noble deed. 
Now the de«ds are few, 
And the men are many, 

And each man has, at most, but a 
noble need. 

Blind fool ! . . . I know that all acted 
time 
By that which succeeds it, is ever re- 
ceived 
As calmer, completer, and more sublime. 
Only because it is finished : because 
We only behold the thing it achieved ; 
We behold not the thing that it was. 
For, while it stands whole and immuta- 
ble. 
In the marble of memory — we, who 
have seen 
But the statue before us, — how can we 
tell 
What the men that have hewn at the 
block may have been ? 
Their passion is merged in its passionless- 
ness ; 
Their strife in its stillness closed for- 
ever : 
Their change upon change in its change- 
lessness ; 
In its final achievement, their feverish 
endeavor : 
Who knows how sculptor on sculptor 

starved 
With the thought in the head by the 

hand un carved ? 
And he that spread out in its ample re- 
pose 
That grand, indifferent, godlike brow, 
How vainly his own may have ached, 
who knows, 
'Twixt the laurel above and the wrin- 
kle below ? 



So again to Babylon I come back. 

Where this fettered giant of Human 

Nature 
Cramped in limb, and constrained in 
stature, 
In the torture-chamber of Vanity 
lies ; 
Helpless and weak, and compelled to 
speak 
The things he must despise. 
You stars, so still in the midnight blue. 
Which over these huddling roofs I view, 
Out of reach of this Babylonian riot, — 
We so restless, and you so quiet. 
What is difference 'twixt us and you ? 

You each may have pined with a paiu 
divine, 

For aught I know. 
As wildly as this weak heart of mine, 

In an Age ago : 
For whence should you have that stern 

repose. 
Which, here, dwells but on the brows 
of those 
Who have lived, and survived life's 
fever. 
Had you never known the ravage and fire 
Of that inexpressible Desire, 
Which wastes and calcines whatever is 

less 
In the soul, than the soul's deep con- 
sciousness 
Of a life that shall last forever ? 

Doubtless, doubtless, again and again, 
Many a moiith has starved for bread 
In a city whose wharves are choked 
with corn 
And many a heart'hath perished dead 
From being too utterly forlorn, 
In a city whose streets are choked with 

men. 
Yet the bread is there, could one find it 

out : 
And there is a heart for a heart, no doubt. 

Wherever a human heart may beat ; 
And room for courage, and truth, and 

love. 
To move, wherever a man may move. 
In the thickliest crowded street. 

Lord of the soul of man, whose will 
Made earth for man, and man for 
heaven. 

Help all thy creatures to fulfil 
The hopes to each one given ! 



222 



THE WANDERER. 



So fair thou madest, and so complete, 
The little daisies at our feet ; 
So sound, and so robust in heart, 
The patient beasts, that bear their part 
In this world's labor, never asking 
The reason of its ceaseless tasking ; 
Hast thou made man, though more in 

kind, 
By reason of his soul and mind, 
Yet less in unison with life. 
By reason of an inward strife, 
Than these, thy simpler creatures, are, 
Submitted to his use and care ? 

For these, indeed, appear to live 

To the full verge of their own power, 
Nor ever need that time should give 

To life one space beyond the hour. 
They do not pine for what is not ; 

Nor quarrel with the things which are ; 
Their yesterdays are all forgot ; 

Their morrows are not feared from far : 
They do not weep, and wail, and moan. 

For what is past, or what 's to be, 
Or what 's not yet, and may be never ; 
They do not their own lives disown. 



Nor haggle vnth eternity 
For some unknown Forever. 

Ah yet, — in this must I believe 

That man is nobler than the rest : — 
That, looking in on his own breast. 
He measures thus his strength and size 
With supernatural destinies. 

Whose shades o'er all his being 
fall; 
And, in that dread comparison 
'Twixt what is deemed and what is 
done, 
He can, at intervals, perceive 

How weak he is, and small. 

Therefore, he knows himself a child, 
Set in this rudimental star, 

To learn the alphabet of Being ; 
By straws dismayed, by toys beguiled. 
Yet conscious of a home afar ; 

With all things here but ill agreeing, 
Because he trusts, in manhood's prime, 
To walk in some celestial clime ; 
Sit in his Father's house ; and he 
The inmate of Eternity. 



BOOK lY.-IE^ SWITZEELAI^D. 



THE HEART AND NATURE. 

The lake is calm ; and, calm, the skies 
In yonder silent siinset glow. 

Where, o'er the woodland, homeward flies 
The solitary crow ; 

The woodman to his hut is gone ; 

The wood-dove in the elm is still ; 
The last sheep drinks, and wanders on 

To graze at will. 

Nor aught the pensive prospect breaks, 
Save where my slow feet stir the grass. 

Or where the trout to diamonds breaks 
The lake's pale glass. 

No moan the cushat makes, to heave 
A leaflet round her windless nest ; 

The air is silent in the eve ; 
The world 's at rest. 

All bright below ; all calm above ; 
No sense of pain, no sign of wrong ; 



Save in thy heart of hopeless love, 
Poor child of Song ! 

Why must the soul through Nature rove, 
At variance with her general plan ? 

A stranger to the Power, whose love 
Soothes all save Man ? 

Why lack the strength of meaner crea- 
tures ? 

The wandering sheep, the grazing kine, 
Are surer of their simple natures 

Than I of mine. 

For all their wants the poorest land 
Aff'ords supply ; they browse and breed ; 

I scarce divine, and ne'er have found, 
What most I need. 

God, that in this human heart 
Hath made Belief so hard to grow, 

And set the doubt, the pang, the smart 
In all we know — 



IN SWITZERLAND. 



223 



Wty hast tliou, too, in solemn jest 
At this tormented thinking-power, 

Inscribed, in Hame on yonder West, 
In hues on every flower, 

Through all the vast unthinking sphere 
Of mere material Force without. 

Rebuke so vehement and severe 
To the least doubt ? 

And robed the world and hung the night. 
With silent, stern, and solemn forms ; 

And strown with sounds of awe and 
might, 
The seas and storms, — 

All lacking power to impart 
To man tMfe secret he assails. 

But armed to crush him, if his heart 
Once doubts or fails ! 

To make him feel the same forlorn 
Despair the Fiend hath felt ere now. 

In gazing at the stern sweet scorn 
On Michael's brow. 



A QUIET MOMENT. 

Stat with me, Lady, while you may ! 

For life 's so sad, — this hour 's so 
sweet ; 
Ah, Lady, — life too long will stay ; 

Too soon this hour will fleet. 

How fair this mountain's purple bust, 
Alone in high and glimmering air ! 

And see, . . . those village spires, up- 
thrust 
From yon dark plain, — how fair ! 

How sweet yon lone and lovely scene. 
And yonder dropping fiery ball, 

And eve's sweet spirit, that steals, un- 
seen, 
With darkness over all ! 

This blessed hour is yours, and eve's ; 

And this is why it seems so sweet 
To lie, as husht as fallen leaves 

In autumn, at your feet ; 

And watch, awhile released from care, 
The twilight in yon quiet skies. 

The twilight in your quiet hair. 
The twilight in your eyes : 



Till in my soul the twilight stays, 

— Eve's twilight, since the dawn's is 

o'er ! 
And life's too -well-known worthless 
days 
Become unknown once more. 

Your face is no uncommon face ; 

Like it, I have seen many a one. 
And may again, before my race 

Of care be wholly run. 

But not the less, those earnest brows, 
And that pure oval cheek can charm ; — 

Those eyes of tender deep repose ; 
That breast, the heart keeps warm. 

Because a sense of goodness sleeps 
In every sober, soft, brown tress, 

That o'er those brows, uncared for, keepi* 
Its shadowy quietness : 

Because that lip's soft silence shows, 

Though passion it hath never known. 
That well, to kiss one kiss, it knows — 

— A woman's holiest one ! 

Yours is the charm of calm good sense, 
Of wholesome views of earth and 
heaven, 

Of pity, touched with reverence. 
To all things freely given. 

Your face no sleepless midnight fills. 
For all its serious sweet endeavor ; 

It plants no pang, no rapture thrills. 
But ah ! — it pleases ever ! 

Not yours is Cleopatra's eye. 

And Juliet's tears you never knew : 

Never will amorous Antony 
Kiss kingdoms out for you ! 

Never for you will Romeo's love, 

From deeps of moonlit musing, break 

To poetry about the glove 
Whose touch may press your cheek. 

But ah, in one, — no Antony 

Nor Romeo now, nor like to these, — 
(Whom neither Cleopatra's eye, 

Nor Juliet's tears, could please) 

How well they lull the larking care 
Which else within the mind endures, — • 

That soft white hand, that soft dark hair, 
And that soft voice of yours ! 



224 



THE WANDEKEE. 



So, while you stand, a fragile form, 
With that close shawl around you 
drawn, 

And eve's last ardors fading warm 
Adown the mountaia lawn, 

'T is sweet, although we part to-morrow. 
And ne'er, the same, shall meet again. 

Awhile, from old habitual sorrow 
To cease ; to cease from pain ; 

To feel that, ages past, the soul 

■ Hath lived — and ages hence will live ; 
And taste, in hours like this, the whole 
Of all the years can give. 

Then, Lady, yet one moment stay, 
While your sweet face makes all things 
sweet, 

For ah, the charm will pass away 
Before again we meet ! 



ISM'NIM. 

Soft, soft he thy sleep in the land of 
the West, 
Fated maiden ! 
Fair lie the flowers, love, and light, on 
thy breast 
Passion-laden, 
In the place where thou art, by the 
storm-beaten strand 
Of the moaning Atlantic, 
While, alone with my sorrow, I roam 
through thy laud, 
The beloved, the romantic ! 
And thy faults, child, sleep where in 
those dark eyes Death closes 
All their doings and undoings ; 
"EoT who counts the thorns on last year's 
perisht roses ? 
Smile, dead rose, in thy ruins ! 
With thy beauty, its frailty is over. 
No token 
Of all which thou wast ! 
ITot so much as the stem whence the 
blossom was broken 
Hath been spared by the frost. 
With thy lips, and thine eyes, and thy 
long golden tresses, 
Cold . . . and so young too ! 
All lost, like the sweetness which died 
with our kisses, 
On the lips we once clung to. 
Be it so ! too loved, and too lovely, to 
linger 



Where Age in its bareness 
Creeps slowly, and Time with his terri- 
ble finger 
Effaces all fairness. 
Thy being was but beauty, thy life only 
rapture, 
And, ere both were over. 
Or yet one delight had escaped from thy 
capture, 
Death came, — thy last lover. 
And found thee, ... no care on thy 
brow, in thy tresses 
No silver — all gold there ! 
On thy lips, when he kissed them, their' 
last human kisses 
Had scarcely grown cold there. 
Thine was only earth's joy, not its sor- 
row, its sinning. 
Its friends that are foes too. 
0, fair was thy life in its lovely beginning, 

And fair in its close too ! 
But I ? . . . since we parted, both mourn- 
ful and many 
Life's changes have been to me : 
And of all the love-garlands Youth wove 
me, not any 
Eemain that are green to me. ' 
0, where are the nights, with thy touch 
and thy breath in them. 
Faint with heart-beating ? 
The fragrance, the darkness, the life and 
the death in them, 
— Parting and meeting ? 
All the M'orld ours in that hour! . . . 
0, the silence. 
The moonlight, and, far in it, 
0, the one nightingale singing a mile 
hence ! 
The oped window — one star in it ! 
Sole witness of stolen sweet moments, 
unguest of 
By the world in its primness ; — 
Just one smile to adore by the starlight : 
the rest of 
Thy soul in the dimness ! 
If I glide through the door of thy cham- 
ber, and sit there. 
The old, faint, uncertain 
Fragrance, that followed thee, surely will 
flit there, — 
O'er the chairs, — in the curtain : — 
But thou ? . . . thou missed, and thou 
moiirned one ! never. 
Nevermore, shall we rove 
Through chamber, or garden, or by the 
dark river 
Soft lamps bum above ! 



IN HOLLAND. 



225 



dead, child, dead, dead — all the 
shrunken romance 
Of the dream life begun with ! 
But thou, love, canst alter no more — 
smile or glance ; 
Thy last change is done with. 
As a moon that is sunken, a sunset 
that's o'er, 
So thy face keeps the semblance 
Of the last look of love, the last grace 
that it wore, 
In my mourning remembrance. 
As a strain from the last of thy songs, 
when we parted, 
Whose echoes thrill yet, 
Through the long dreamless nights of 
sad^years, lonely-hearted, 
With their haunting regret, — 



Though nerveless the hand now, and j 

shattered the lute too, ; 
Once vocal for me, 

There floats through life's ruins, when i 

all's dark and mute too, ', 

The music of thee ! < 

Beauty, how brief ! Life, how long ! ' 

. . . well, love 's done now ! ] 
Down the path fate arranged for me 

I tread faster, because 1 must tread it ■; 

alone now. \ 

— This is all that is changed for me. ; 

My heart must have broken, ere I broke ; 

the fetter \ 
Thyself didst undo, love. 

— Ah, there 's many a purer, and many a \ 

better, i 
But more loved, ... 0, how few, love ! 



BOOK Y.-IK HOLLAE'D. 



AUTUMN. 

So now, then. Summer 'sover — by degrees. 
Hark ! 't is the wind in yon red region 
grieves. 
Who says the world grows better, 
growing old ? 
See ! what poor trumpery on those pau- 
per trees, 
That cannot keep, for all their fine 
gold leaves. 
Their last bird from the cold. 

This is Dame Nature, puckered, pinched, 
and sour. 
Of all the charms her poets praised, 
bereft. 
Scowling and scolding (only hear 
her, there !) 
Like that old spiteful Queen, in her last 
hour. 
Whom Spenser, Shakespeare, sung to 
. . . nothing left 
But wrinkles and red hair ! 



LEAFLESS HOURS. 

The pale sun, through the spectral wood, 
Gleams sparely, where I pass : 

My footstep, silent as my mood, 
Falls in the silent grass. 



Only my shadow points before me. 

Where I am moving now : 
Only sad memories murmur o'er me 

From every leafless bough : 
And out of the nest of last year's Red- 
breast 

Is stolen the very snow. 



ON MY TWENTY-FOURTH YEAR. 

The night 's in November : the winds 
are at strife : 
The snow 's on the hill, and the ice on 
the mere ; 
The world to its winter is turned : and 
my life 
To its twenty-fourth year. 

The swallows are flown to the south long 
ago : 
The roses are fallen : the woodland is 
sere. 
Hope 's flown with the swallows : Love's 
rose will not grow 
In my twenty-fourth year. 

The snow on the threshold : the cold at 
the heart : 
But the fagot to warm, and the wine- 
cup ta cheer : 



226 



THE WANDEREE. 



God's lielp to look up to : and courage 
to start 
On my twenty-fourth year. 

And 'tis well that the month of the 
roses is o'er ! 
The last, which I plucked for Nersea 
to wear, 
She gave her new lover. A man should 
do more 
"With his twenty-fourth year 

Than mourn for a woman, because she 's 
unkind, 
Or pine for a woman, because she is fair. 
Ah, I loved you, Neraea ! But now . . . 
never mind, 
'T is my twenty-fourth year ! 

What a thing ! to have done with the 
follies of Youth, 
Ere Age brings its follies ! . . . though 
many a tear 
It should cost, to see Love fly away, and 
find Truth 
In one's twenty-fourth year. 

The Past's golden valleys are drained. 
I must plant 
On the Future's rough upland new 
harvests, I fear. 
Ho, the plough and the team ! . . . who 
would perish of want 
In his twenty-fourth year ? 

Man's heart is a well, which forever re- 
news 
The void at the bottom, no sounding 
comes near : 
And Love does not die, though its object 
I lose 
In my twenty-fourth year. 

The great and the little are only in name. 
The smoke from my chimney casts 
shadows as drear 
On the heart, as the smoke from Vesu- 
vius in flame : 
And my twenty-fourth year, 

From the joys that have cheered it, the 
cares that have troubled. 
What is wise to pursue, what is well 
to revere, 
May judge all as fully as though life 
were doubled 
To its forty-eighth year ! 



If the prospect grow dim, 't is because it 
grows wide. 
Every loss hath its gain. So, from 
sphere on to sphere, 
Man mounts up the ladder of Time : so 
I stride 
Up my twenty-fourth year ! 



Exulting ? 



no . . . sorrowing? 
no . . . with a mind 



Whose regret chastens hope, whose 
faith triumphs o'er fear : 
Not repining : not confident : no, but 
resigned 

To my twenty-fourth year. 



JACQUELINE, 

COUNTESS OF HOLLAND AND HAINAULT.* 

Is it the twilight, or my fading sight, 
Makes all so dim around me ? I^o, the 

night 
Is come already. See ! through yonder 

pane. 
Alone in the gray air, that star again — 
Which shines so wan, I used to call it 

mine 
For its pale face : like Countess Jacque- 
line 
Who reigned in Brabant once . . . that 's 

years ago. 
I called so much inine, then : so much 

seemed so ! 
And see, my own ! — of all those things, 

my star 
(Because God hung it there, in heaven, 

so far 
Above the reach and want of those hard 

men) 
Is all they have not taken from me. 

Then 
I call it still My Star. Why not ? The 

dust 
Hath claimed the dust : no more. And 

moth and rust 



* Who was married to the impotent and 
worthless John of Brabant, affianced to "good 
Duke Humphry," of Gloucester, and finally 
wedded to Frank von Borselen, a gentleman of 
Zealand, in consequence of which marriage she 
lost even the title of Countess. She died at 
the age of thirty-six, after a life of unparalleled 
adventure and misfortune. See any Biographi- 
cal Dictionary, or any History of the Nether- 
lands. 



I 



IN HOLLAND. 



227 



May rot the throne, the kingly purple 

fray : — 
"What then? Yon star saw kingdoms 

rolled away 
Ere mine was taken from me. It sur- 
vives. 
But think, Beloved, —in that high life 

of lives, 
When our souls see the suns themselves 

burn low 
Before that Sun of Righteousness, — and 

know 
What is, and was, before the suns were 

lit, — 
How Love is all in all . . . Look, look at it. 
My star, — God's star, — for being God's 

't is mine : 
Had it beeli man's ... no matter . . . 

see it shine — 
The old wan beam, which I have watched 

ere now 
So many a wretched night, when this 

poor brow 
Ached 'neath the sorrows of its thorny 

crown. 
Its crown ! . . . ah, droop not, dear, those 

fond eyes down. 
No gem in all that shattered coronet 
Was half so precious as the tear which 

wet 
Just now this pale sick forehead. my 

own. 
My husband, need was, that I should 

have known 
Much sorrow, — more than most Queens, 

— all know some, — 
Ere, dying, I could bless thee for the 

home 
Far dearer than the Palace, — call thy 

tear, 
The costliest gem that ever sparkled here. 

Infold me, my Beloved. One more kiss. 
0, I must go ! 'T was wiUed I should 

not miss 
Life's secret, ere I left it. And now 

see, — 
My lips touch thine — thine arm encir- 

. cles me — 
The secret 's found — God beckons — I 

must go. 
Earth's best is given. — Heaven's turn 

is come to show 
How much its best earth's best may yet 

exceed. 
Lest earth's should seem the very best 

indeed. 



So we must part a little ; but not long. 
I seem to see it all. My lands belong 
To Philip still ; but thine will be my 

grave, 
(The only strip of land which I could 

save !) 
Not much, but wide enough for some 

few flowers. 
Thou 'It plant there, by and by, in later 

hours : 
Duke Humphry, when they tell him I 

am dead 
(And so young too !) will sigh, and shake 

his head. 
And if his wife should chide, "Poor 

Jacqvieline," 
He '11 add, "You know she never could 

be mine." 
And men will say, when some one speaks 

of me, 
"Alas, it was a piteous history. 
The life of that poor countess ! " For 

the rest 
Will never know, my love, how I was blest. 
Some few of my poor Zealanders, per- 
chance. 
Will keep kind memories of me ; and in 

France 
Some minstrel sing my story. Pitiless 

John 
Will prosper still, no doubt, as he has 

done. 
And still praise God with blood upon 

the Rood. 
Philip will, doubtless, still be called 

"The Good." 
And men will curse and kill : and the 

old game 
Will weary out new hands : the love of 

fame 
Will sow new sins : thou wilt not be 

renowned : 
And I shall lie quite quiet under ground. 
My life is a torn book. But at the end 
A little page, quite fair, is saved, my 

friend. 
Where thou didst write thy name. No 

stain is there. 
No blot, — from marge to marge, all 

pure — no tear ; — 
The last page, saved from all, and writ 

by thee, 
Which I shall take safe up to Heaven 

with me. 
All 's not in vain, since this be so. Dost 

grieve ? 
Beloved, I beseech thee to belieye 



228 



THE WANDERER. 



Althougli this be the last page of my life, 
It is my heart's first, only one. Thy 

wife, 
Poor though she be, thou sole wealth 

of mine, 
Is happier than the Countess Jacqueline ! 

And since my heart owns thine, say, — 

am I not 
A Queen, my chosen, though by all 

forgot ? 
Though all forsake, yet is not this thy 

hand ? 
I, a lone wanderer in a darkened land, 
I, a poor pilgrim with no staff of hope, 
I, a late traveller down the evening slope, 
Where any spark, the glow-worm's by 

the way, 
Had been a light to bless . . . have I, 

say, 
Not found, Beloved, in thy tender eyes, 
A light more sweet than morning's ? As 

there dies 
Some day of storm all glorious in its 

even, 
My life grows loveliest as it fades in 

heaven. 
This earthly house breaks up. This 

flesh must fade. 
So many shocks of grief slow breach 

have made 
In the poor frame. Wrongs, insults, 

treacheries, 
Hopes broken down, and memory which 

sighs 
In, like a night-wind ! Life was never 

meant 
To bear so much in such frail tenement. 
Why should we seek to patch and 

plaster o'er 
This shattered roof, crusht windows, 

broken door 
The light already shines through ? Let 

them break. 

Yet would I gladly live for thy dear 

sake, 
my heart's first and last, if that could 

be! 
In vain ! . . . yet grieve not thou. I 

shall not see 
England again, and those white clifiFs ; 

nor ever 
Again those four gray towers beside the 

river, 
And London's roaring bridges : never 

more 



Those windows with the market-stalls 

before. 
Where the red-kirtled market-girls went 

by 

In the great square, beneath the great 

gray sky, 
In Brussels : nor in Holland, night or day, 
Watch those long lines of siege, and 

fight at bay 
Among my broken army, in default 
Of Gloucester's failing forces from Hai- 

nault : 
Nor shall I pace again those gardens 

green, 
With their dipt alleys, where they 

called me Queen, 
In Brabant once. For all these things 

are gone. 
But thee I shall behold, my chosen one, 
Though we should seem whole worlds on 

worlds apart. 
Because thou wilt be ever in my heart. 
Nor shall I leave thee wholly. I shall be 
An evening thought, — a morning dream 

to thee, — 
A silence in thy life when, through the 

night. 
The bell strikes, or the sun, with sinking 

light, 
Smites aU the empty windows. As there 

sprout 
Daisies, and dimpling tufts of violets, out 
Among the grass where some corpse lies 

asleep, 
So round thy life, where I lie buried deep, 
A thousand little tender thoughts shall 

spring, 
A thousand gentle memories wind and 

cling. 
0, promise me, my own, before my soul 
Is houseless, — let the great world turn 

and roll 
Upon its way unvext ... Its pomps, 

its powers ! 
The dust says to the dust, ..." the 

earth is ours." 
I would not, if I could, be Queen again 
For all the walls of the wide world con- 
tain. 
Be thou content with silence. Who 

woiild raise 
A little dust and" noise of human praise, 
If he could see, in yonder distance dim, 
The silent eye of God that watches him ? 
Oh ! couldst thou see all that I see to- 

. night 
Upon the brinks of the great Infinite 1 



IN HOLLAND. 



229 



" Come out of her, my people, lest ye be 
Partakers of lier sins ! "... My love, 

but we 
Our treasure where no thieves break in 

and steal, 
Have stored, I trust. Earth's weal is 

not our weal. 
Let the world mind its business — peace 

or war, 
Ours is elsewhere. Look, look, — my 

star, my star ! 
It grows, it glows, it spreads in light 

unfurled ; — 
Said I "my star " ? No star — a world 

— God's world ! 
What hymns adown the jasper sea are 

rolled, 
Even to these sick pillows ! Who infold 
White wings about me ? Rest, rest, 

rest ... 1 come ! 
O Love ! I think that I am near my 

home. 
Whence was that music ? Was it Heav- 
en's I heard ? 
Write " Blessed are the dead that die i' 

the Lord, 
Because they rest," . . . because their toil 

is o'er. 
The voice of weeping shall be heard no 

more 
In the Eternal city. Neither dying 
Nor sickness, pain nor sorrow, neither 

crying, 
For God shall wipe away all tears. Eest, 

rest. 
Thy hand, my husband, — so — upon 

thy breast ! 



MACROMICROS. 

It is the star of solitude, 
Alight in yon lonely sky. 

The sea is silent in its mood, 
Motherlike moaning a lullaby. 
To hush the hungering mystery 

To sleep on its breast subdued. 
The night is alone, and I. 

It is not the scene I am seeing. 
The lonely sky and the sea, 

It is the pathos of Being 

That is making so dark in me 

This silent and solemn hour : — 

The bale of baffled power, 
The wail of unbaffled desire. 



The fire' that must ever devour 
The source by which it is fire. 

My spirit expands, expands ! 

I spread out my soul on the sea. 
I feel for yet unfound lands. 

And I find but the land where She 
Sits, with her sad white hands, 

At her golden broidery, 
In sight of the sorrowful sands, 

In an antique gallery. 
Where, ever beside her, stands 

(Moodily mimicking me) 
The ghost of a something her heart de- 
mands 

For a blessing which cannot be. 

And broider, broider by night and day 
The brede of thy blazing broidery ! 

Till thy beauty be wholly woven away 
Into the desolate tapestry. 

Let the thread be scarlet, the gold be 

gay, 

For the damp to dim, and the moth to 
fray : 
Weave in the azure, and crimson, and 
green ! 
Till the slow threads, needling out and in, 
To take a fashion and form begin : 
Yet, for all the time and toil, I see 
The work is vain, and will not be 
Like what it was meant to have been. 

woman, woman, with face so pale ! 
Pale woman, weaving away 

A frustrate life at a lifeless loom. 
Early or late, 't is of little avail 

That thou lightest the lamp in the 
gloom. 
Full well, I see, there is coming a day 
When the work shall forever rest in- 
complete. 
Fling, fling the foolish blazon away, 
And weave me a winding-sheet ! 

It is not for thee, in this dreary hour. 
That I walk, companionless here by 
the shore. 

1 am caught in the eddy and whirl, of a 

power 
Which is not grief, and is not love. 

Though it loves, and grieves. 
Within me, without me, wherever I 
move 
In the going out of the ghostly eves, 
And is changing me more and more. 
I am not mourning for thee, although 



230 



THE WANDERER. 



I love thee, and thou art lost : 
Nor yet for myself, albeit I know 

That my life is flawed and crost : 
But for that sightless, sorrowing Soul 

That is feeling, blind with immortal 
pain, 

All round, for what it can never attain ; 
That prisoned, pining,' and passionate 
soul. 

So vast, and yet so small ; 

That seems, now nothing, now all. 
That moves me to pity beyond control, 

And repulses pity again. 
I am mourning, since mourn I must. 

With those patient Powers that bear, 

'Neath the unattainable stars up there. 
With the pomp and pall of funeral, 
Subject and yet august. 
The weight of this world's dust : — 

The ruined giant under the rock : 
The stricken spirit below the ocean : 

And the winged things wounded of old 
by the shock 
That set the earth in motion. 

Ah yet, . . . and yet, and yet, 

If She were here with me. 

If she were here by the sea, 
With the face I cannot forget, 

Then all things would not be 
So fraught with my own regret, 

But what I should feel and see, 
And seize it at last, at last, — 
The secret known and lost in the past, 

To unseal the Genii that sleep 

In vials long hid in the deep ; 
By forgotten, fashionless spells held fast, 
Where through streets of the cities of 
coral, aghast. 

The sea-nymphs wander and weep. 



MYSTERY. 

The hour was one of mystery, 
When we were sailing, I and she, 

Down the dark, the silent stream. 
The stars above were pale with love. 
And a wizard wind did faintly move. 

Like a whisper through a dream. 

Her head was on my breast, 

Her loving little head ! 
Her hand in mine was prest. 

And not a word we said ; 



But round and round the night we 
wound. 
Till we came at last to the Isle of 
Fays ; 
And, all the while, from the magic isle, 
Came that music, that music of other 
days ! 

The lamps in the garden gleamed. 

The Palace was all alight. 
The sound of the viols streamed 

Through the windows over the night. 
We saw the dancers pass 

At the windows, two by two. 
The dew was on the grass. 

And the glow-worm in the dew. 

We came through the grass to the 

cypress-tree. 
We stood in its shadow, I and she. 
" Thy face is pale, thine eyes are wild. 
What aileth thee, what aileth thee ? " 

"Naught aileth me," she murmured mild, 
" Only the moonlight makes me pale ; 
The moonlight, shining through the veil 
Of this black cypress- tree. " 

" By yonder moon, whose light so soon 

Will fade upon the gloom. 
And this black tree, whose mystery 

Is mingled with the tomb, — 
By Love's brief moon, and Death's dark 

tree, ■"•],, 

Lovest thou me V' 

Upon my breast she leaned her head ; 

" By yonder moon and tree, 
I swear that all mj' soul," she said, 

" Is given to thee." 

" I know not what thy soul may be, 

Nor canst thou make it mine. 
Yon stars may all be worlds : for me 

Enough to know they shine. 
Thou art mine evening star. I know - 

At dawn star-distant thou wilt be : 
I shall not hear thee murmuring low ; 

Thy face I shall not see. 
I love thy beauty : 't will not stay ; 
Let it be all mine while it may. 

I have no bliss save in the kiss 

Thou givest me." . 

We came to the statue carved in stone, ^{ 
Over the fountain. 'We stood there 
alone. 



IN HOLLAND, 



231 



" What aileth thee, that thou dost sigh ? 

And why is thy hand so cold ? " 
" 'T is the fountain that sighs," . . . she 
said, " not I ; 
And the statue, whose hand thou dost 
hold." 

" By yonder fount, that flows forever, 
And this statue, that cannot move, — 

By the fountain of Time, that ceases 
never, 
And the fixedness of Love, — 

By motion and immutability 

Lovest thou me ? " 

" By the fountain of Tim§, with its 
ceaseless flow. 
And the4mage of Love that rests," 
sighed she, 
" I love thee, I swear, come joy, come 
woe. 
For eternity ! " 

" Eternity is a word so long 

That I cannot spell it now : 
For the nightingale is singing her song 

From yon pomegranate bough. 
Let it mean what it may — Eternity, 
If thou lovest me now as I love thee, 
As I love thee ! " 

We came to the Palace. We mounted 

the stair. 
The great hall-doors wide open were. 
And all the dancers that danced in the 

hall 
Greeted us to the festival. 

There were ladies, as fair as fair might be, 
But not one of them all was fair as she. 
There were knights, that looked at them 

lovingly, 
But not one of them all was loving as I. 

Only, each noble cavalier 

Had his throat red-lined from ear to ear ; 

'T was a collar of merit, I have heard. 

Which a Queen upon each had once con- 
ferred. 

And each lovely lady that oped her lip 

Let a little mouse's tail outslip ; 

'Twas the fashion there, I know not 
why. 

But fashions are changing constantly. 

From the crescented naphtha lamps each 
ray 

Streamed into a still enchanted blaze ; — 



And forth from the deep-toned orchestra 
That music, that music of other days ! 

My arm enlaced her winsome waist. 

And down the dance we flew ; 
We flew, we raced : our lips embraced : 

And our breath was mingled too. 
Round, and round, to a magic sound — 

(A wizard waltz to a wizard air !) 
Round and round, we whirled, we wound, 
In a circle light and flue : 
My cheek was fanned by her fragrant 
hair. 
And her bosom beat on mine : 
And all the while, in the winding ways, 
That music, that music of other days, 
With its melodies divine ! 

The palace clock stands in tlie hall, 
And talks, unheard, of the flight of 
time : 

With a face too pale for a festival 
It telleth a tale too sad for rhyme. 

The palace clock, with a silver note. 
Is chanting the death of the hour 
that dies. 

' ' What aileth thee ? for I see float 
A shade into thine eyes." 

"Naught aileth me," . . . low murmured 
she, 

"I am faint with the dance, my love, 
Give me thine arm : the air is warm : 

Lead me unto the grove." 

We wandered into the grove. We found 
A bower by wf»odbine woven round. 

Upon my breast she leaned her head\: 
I drew her into the bower apart. \ 

" I swear to thee, my love," she saidl 
" Thou hast my heart ! " \ 

" Ah, leave thy little heart at rest ! 

For it is so light, I think, so light. 

Some wind would blow it away to-night. 
If it were not safe in thy breast. 
But the wondrous brightness on thine 
hair 

Did never seem more bright: 
And thy beauty never looked more fair 

Than thy beauty looks to-night : 
And this dim hour, and this wild bower. 

Were made for our delight : 
Here we will stay, until the day. 

In yon dark east grows white." 



232 



THE WANDERER. 



"This may not be," . . . slie answered 
me, 
" For I was lately wed 
With a diamond ring to an Ogre-king, 

And I am his wife," , . . she said. 
"My husband is old ; but his crown is 
of gold : 
And he hath a cruel eye : 
And his arm is long, and his hand is 
strong, 
And his body is seven ells high : 
And alas ! 1 fear, if he found us here, 
That we both should surely die. 

" All day I take my harp, and play 

To him on a golden string : 
Thorough the weary livelong day 

I play to him, and sing : 
I sing to him till his white hair 

Begins to curl and creep : 
And his wrinkles old slowly unfold, 

And his brows grow smooth as sleep. 
But at night, when he calls for his 
golden cup, 
Into his wine I pour 
A juice which he drinks duly up. 
And sleeps till the night is o'er. 
For one moment I wait : I look at him 
straight. 
And tell him for once how much I de- 
test him : 
I have no fear lest he should hear. 
The drug he hath drained hath so 
opprest him. 
Then, finger on lip, away I slip, 

And down the hills, till I reach the 
stream : ^ 

I call to thee clear, till the boat appear. 
And we sail together through dark and 
dream. 
And sweet it is, in this Isle of Fays, 
To wander at will through a garden 
of flowers. 
While the flowers that bloom, and the 
lamps that blaze. 
And the veiy nightingales seem ours ! 
And sweeter it is, in the winding ways 
Of the waltz, while the music falls in 
showers. 
While the minstrel plays, and the mo- 
ment stays. 
And the sweet brief rapture of love is 
ours ! 

" But the night is far spent ; and before 
the first rent 
In yon dark bliae sky overhead, 



My husband will wake, and the spell 
will break. 
And peril is near," . . , she said. 
"For if he should wake, and not find 

me. 
By bower and brake, thorough bush and 
tree. 
He will come to seek me here ; 
And the Palace of Fays, in one vast blaze, 

Will sink and disappear ; 
And the nightingales will die in the 
vales. 
And all will be changed and drear ! 
For the fays and elves can take care of 
themselves : 
They will slip on their slippers, and 
go: 
In their little green cloaks they will 
hide in the oaks, 
And the forests and brakes, for their 
sweet sakes, 
Will cover and keep them, I know. 
And the knights, with their spurs, and 
velvets and furs. 
Will take off their heads, each one, 
And to horse, and away, as fast as they 
may, 
Over brook, and bramble, and stone ; 
And each dame of the house has a little 
dun mouse, 
That will whisper her when to be gone ; 
But we, my love, in this desolate grove. 

We shall be left alone ; 
And my husband will find us, take us 
and bind us : 
In his cave he will lock me up. 
And pledge me for spite in thy blood by 
night 
When he drains down his golden cup." 

"Thy husband, dear, is a monster, 'tis 
clear. 
But just now I will not tarry 
Thy choice to dispute — how on earth 
such a brute 
Thou hadst ever the fancy to marry. 
For wherefore, meanwhile, are we two 
here. 
In a fairy island under a spell. 
By night, in a magical atmosphere, 

In a lone enchanted dell. 
If we are to say and do no more 
Than is said and done by the dull 
daylight. 
In that dry old world, where both must 
ignore, j 

To-morrow, the dream of to-night." j 



m HOLLAND. 



233 



Her head drooped on my breast, 

Fair foolish little head ! 
Her lips to mine were prest. 

Never a word was said. 

If it were but a dream of the night, 
A dream that I dreamed in sleep — 

Why, then, is ray face so white, 
And this wound so red and deep ? 

But whatever it was, it all took place 
Inaland where neveryourstepswill go, 

Though they wander, wherever they will, 
through space ; 
In an hour you never will know. 
Though you should outlive the crow 

That is like to outlive your race. 

And if it were hut a dream, it broke 
Too soon, albeit too late I woke, 
Waked by the smart of a sounding stroke 

Which has so confused my wits. 
That I cannot remember, and never shall, 
What was the close of that festival. 

Nor how the Palace was shattered 
to bits : 
For all that, just now, I think I know, 
Is what is the force of an Ogre's blow. 

As my head, by starts and fits, 
Aches and throbs ; and, when I look 

round. 
All -that I hear is the sickening sound 
Of the nurse's w^atch, and the doctor's 

boots. 
Instead of the magical fairy flutes ; 
And all that I see, in my love's lost 

place, 
Is that gin-drinking hag, with her nut- 
cracker face. 
By the hearth's half-burned out wood : 
. And the only stream is this stream of 

blood 
That flows from me, red and wide : 
Yet still I hear, — as sharp and clear, 
In the horrible, horrible silence outside, 
The clock that stands in the empty hall, 
And talks to my soul of the flight of 
time ; 
With a face like a face at a funeral, 
Telling a tale too sad for rhyme : 
And still I hear, with as little cheer, 

In the yet more horrible silence inside, 
Chanted, perchance, by elves and fays. 
From some far island, out of my gaze, 
■ Where a house has fallen, and some 

one has died, 
That music, that music of other days, 
• .With its minstrelsy undescried ! 



For Time, which surviveth everything. 
And Memory which surviveth Time :- 

These two sit by my side, and sing, 
A song too sad for rhyme. 



THE CANTICLE OF LOVE. 

I ONCE heard an angel, by night, in the sky, 
Singing softly a song to a deep golden 
lute : 
The polestar, the seven little planets, 
and I, 
To the song that he sung listened mute. 
For the song that he sung was so strange 
and so sweet. 
And so tender the tones of his lute's 
golden strings. 
That the Seraphs of Heaven sat husht 
at his feet. 
And folded their heads in their wings. 

And the song that he sung by those 

Seraphs up there 
Is called ..." Love." But the words, I 

had heard them elsewhere. 

For, when I was last in the nethermost 
Hell, 
On a rock 'mid the sulphurous surges, 
I heard 
A pale spirit sing to a wild hollow shell, 
And his song was the same, every 
word. 
But so sad was his singing, all Hell to 
the sound 
Moaned, and, wailing, complained like 
a monster in pain, 
While the fiends hovered near o'er the 
dismal profound, 
With their black wings weighed down 
by the strain. 

And the ^ng that was sung by the Lost 

Ones down there 
Is called . . . "Love." But the spirit 

that sung was Despair. 

When the moon sets to-night, I will go 
down to ocean. 
Bare my brow to the breeze, and my 
heart to its anguish ; 
And sing till the Siren with pining emo- 
tion 
(Unroused in her sea-caves) shall lan- 
guish. 



234 



THE WANDERER. 



And the Sylphs of the water shall crouch 
at my feet, 
"With their white wistful faces turned 
upward to hear, 
And the soft Salamanders shall float, in 
the heat 
Of the ocean volcanoes, more near. 

For the song I have learned, all that 

listen shall move : 
But there 's one will not listen, and that 

one I love. 



THE PEDLER. 

There was a man, whom yoii might see, 
Toward nightfall, on the dusty track. 

Faring, footsore and wearily — 
A strong box on his back. 

A speck against the flaring sky, 
You saw him pass the line of dates, 

The camel-drivers loitering by 
From Bagdadt's dusking gates. 

The merchants from Bassora stared. 
And of his wares would question him, 

But, without answer, on he fared 
Into the evening dim. 

Nor only in the east : but oft 

In northern lands of ice and snow, 

You might have seen, past field and croft, 
That figure faring slow. 

His cheek was worn ; his back bent double 
Beneath the iron box he bore ; 

And in his walk there seemed such 
trouble, 
You saw his feet were sore. 

You wondered if he ever had 
A settled home, a wife, a child : 

You marvelled if a face so sad^ 
At any time had smiled. 

The cheery housewife oft would fling 
A pitying alms, as on he strode. 

Where, round the hearth, a rosy ring. 
Her children's faces glowed : 

In the dark doorway, oft the maid. 
Late-lingering on her lover's arm, 

Watched through the twilight, half 
afraid, 
That solitary form. 



The traveller hailed him oft, . . . "Good 
night : 

The town is far: the road is lone : 
God speed ! " . . . already out of sight. 

The wayfarer was gone. 

But, when the night was late and still, 
And the last star of all had crept 

Into his place above the hill, 

He laid him down and slept. 1 

His head on that strong box he laid : 
And there, beneath the star-cold skies, 

In slumber, I have heard it said. 
There rose before his eyes 

A lovely dream, a vision fair, 
Of some far-off", forgotten land, 

And of a girl with golden hair. 
And violets in her hand. 

He sprang to kiss her ..." Ah ! once 

more 
Return, beloved, and bring with thee 
The glory and delight of yore, — 
Lost evermore to me ! " 

Then, ere she answered, o'er his back 
There fell a brisk and sudden stroke, — ' 

So sound and resolute a thwack 
That, with the blow, he woke . . . 

There comes out of that iron box 
An ugly hag, an angry crone ; 

Her crutch about his ears she knocks : 
She leaves him not alone : 

" Thou lazy vagabond ! come, budge, 

And carry me again," . . . she says : 
"Not half the journey's over . . . 

trudge ! " 
. . . He groans, and he obeys. 

Oft in the sea he sought to fling 
That iron box. But witches swim : 

And wave and wind were sure to bring 
The old hag back to him ; 

Who all the more about his brains 
Belabored him with such hard blows. 

That the poor devil, for his pains. 
Wished himself dead, heaven knows ! 

Love, is it thy hand in mine? . . . Behold! 

I see the crutch uplifted high. 
The angry hag prepares to scold. 

0, yet we might Good by I 



IN HOLLAND. 



235 



A GHOST STORY. 

I LAY awake past midnight : 
Tlie moon set o'er the snow : 

The very cocks, for coldness, 
Could neither sleep nor crow. 

There came to me, near morning, 

A woman pale and fair : 
She seemed a monarch's daughter, 

By the red gold round her hair. 

The ring upon her finger 
"Was one that well I know : 

I knew her fair face also, 
For I had loved it so ! 

But I felt I saw a spirit, 

And I was«ore afraid ; 
For it is many and many a year 

Ago, since she was dead. 

^ would have spoken to her. 
But I could not speak, for fear : 

Because it was a homeless ghost 
That walked beyond its sphere ; 

Till her head from her white shoulders 
She lifted up : and said . . . 

*' Look in I you 'II find I 'm hollow. 
Fray do not be afraid J " 



SMALL PEOPLE. 

The warm moon was up in the sky. 
And the warm summer out on the land. 

There trembled a tear from her eye ; 
There trembled a tear on my hand. 

He"r sweet face I could not see clear, 
For the shade was so dark in the tree : 

I only felt touched by a tear. 
And I thought that the tear was for 
me. 

In her small ear I whispered a word, — 
"With her sweet lips she laughed in my 
face 
And, as light through the leaves as a 
bird, 
She ilitted away from the place. 

Then she told to her sister, the Snake, 
All I said ; and her cousin the Toad. 

The Snake slipped away to the brake. 
The Toad went to town by the road. 



The Toad told the Devil's coach-horse, 
"Who cocked up bis tail at the news. 

The Snake hissed the secret, of course, 
To the Newt, who was changing her 
shoes. 

The Newt drove away to the ball. 
And told it the Scorpion and Asp. 

The Spider, who lives in the wall. 
Overheard it, and told it the "Wasp. 

The "Wasp told the Midge and the Gnat : 
And the Gnat told the Flea and the Nit. 

The Nit dropped an egg as she sat : 
The Flea shrugged his shoulders, and 
bit. 

The Nit and the Flea are too small. 
And the Snake slips from under my 
foot : 

I wish I could find 'mid them all 
A man, — to insult and to shoot ! 

METEMPSYCHOSIS. 

SHE fanned my life out with her soft 
little sighs : 
She hushed me to death with her face 

so fair : 
was drunk with the light of her wild 

blue eyes, 

/And strangled dumb in her long gold 
hair. 

So now I'm a blessed and wandering 
ghost. 
Though I cannot quite find out my 
way up to heaven : 
But I hover about o'er the long reedy 
coast. 
In the wistful light of a low red even. 

I have borrowed the coat of a little gray 
gnat : 
There's a small sharp song I have 
learned how to sing : 
I know a green place she is sure to be at : 
I shall light on her neck there, and 
sting, and sting. 

Tra-la-la, tra-la-la, life never pleased me ! 

I fly where I list now, and sleep at my 

ease. 

Buzz, buzz, buzz ! the dead only are free. 

Yonder 's my way now. Give place, if 

you please. 



236 



THE WANDERER. 



TO THE QUEEN OF SERPENTS. 

I TRUST that never more in this world's 
shade 
Thine eyes will be upon me : never 
more 
Thy face come back to me. For thou 
hast made 

My whole life sore : 

And I might curse thee, if thou earnest 
again 
To mock me with the memory in thy 
face 
Of days I would had been not. So 
much pain 

Hath made me base — 

Enough to wreak the wrath of years of 
wrong 
Even on so frail and weak a thing as 
thou ! 
Fare hence, and be forgotten. . . . Sing 
thy song, 

And braid thy brow, 

And be beloved, and beautiful, — and be 
In beauty baleful still ... a Serpent 
Queen 
To others not yet curst by kissing thee, 
As I have been. 

But come not nigh me till my end be 
near. 
And I have turned a dying face to- 
ward heaven. . 
Then, if thou wilt, approach, — and 
have no fear, 

And be forgiven. 

Close, if thou wilt, mine eyes, and 
smooth my hair : 
Fond words will come upon my part- 
ing breath. 
Nor, having desolated life, forbear 
Kind offices to death. 



BLUEBEARD. 

I WAS to wed young Fatima, 

As pure as April's snowdrops are. 

In whose love lay hid my crooked life. 
As in its sheath my scimitar. 

Among the hot pomegranate boughs, 
At sunset, here alone we sat. 



To call back something from that hour 
I 'd give away my Galiphat. 

She broke her song to gaze at me : 
Her lips she leaned my lips above . . . 

" Why art thou silent all this while. 
Lord of my life, and of my love ? " 

" Silent I am,, young Fatima, 

For silent is my soul in me, 
And language will not help the want 

Of that which cannot ever be." 

" But wherefore is thy spirit sad. 
My lord, my love, my life ? " . . . she 
said. 
*' Because thy face is wondrous like 
■ The face of one I knew, that 's dead." 

"Ah cruel, cruel," cried Fatima, 

" That I should not possess the past ! 

What woman's lips first kissed tlie lips 
Where my kiss lived and lingered last ? 

" And she that 's dead was loved by thee, 
That so her memory moves thee 
yet ? . . . 

Thy face grows cold and white, as looks 
The moon o'er yonder minaret ! " 

"Ay, Fatima! I loved her loell, 
• With all of love's and life's despair^ 
Or else I had not strangled her, | 

That night, in her own fatal hair." \ 



FATIMA. 

A YEAE ago thy cheek was bright. 
As oleander buds that break 

The dark of yonder dells by night 
Above the lamp-lit lake. 

Pale as a snowdrop in Cashmere 

Thy face to-night, fair infant, seems. 

Ah, wretched child ! What dost thou 
hear 
When I talk in my dreams ? 



GOING BACK AGAIN. 

I DREAMED that I walked in Italy 
When the day was going down, 

By a water that flowed quite silently 
Through an old dim-lighted town : 



IN HULLAJNU. 



237 



Till T came to a Palace fair to see : 
Wide open the windows were : 

My love at a window sat, and she 
Beckoned me up the stair. 

I roamed through many a corridor 
And many a chamber of state : 

I passed through many an open door, 
While the day was growing late : 

Till I came to the Bridal Chamber at last, 

All dim in the darkening weather. 
The flowers at the window were talking 

fast, 
. And whispering all together. 

The place was so still that I could hear 

Every word that they said : 
They were wMspering under their breath 
with fear, 

For somebody there was dead. 

When I came to the little rose-colored 
room, 

From the window there flew a bat. 
The window was opened upon the gloom : 

My love at the window sat : 

She sat with her guitar on her knee, 
But she was not singing a note. 

For some one had drawn (ah, who could 
it be ?) 
A knife across her throat. 



THE CASTLE OF KING MACBETH. 

This is the castle of King Macbeth. 
And here he feasts — when the day- 
light wanes, 
And the moon goes softly over the 
heath — 
His Earls and Thanes. 

A hundred harpers with harps of gold 
Harp thorough the night high festival : 

And the sound of the music they make 
is rolled 
From hall to hall. 

They drink deep healths till the rafters 
rock 
In the Banquet Hall ; and the shout 
is borne 
To the courts outside, where the crowing 
cock 
Is waked ere morn. 



And the castle is all in a blaze of light 
From cresset, and torch, and sconce : 
and there 

Each warrior dances all the night 
With his lady fair. 

They dance and sing till the raven is 
stirred 
On the wicked elm-tree outside in the 



And the rustle of silken robes is heard 
From room to room. 

But there is one room in that castle old, 
In a lonely turret where no one goes. 

And a dead man sits there, stark and cold, 
Whom no one knows. 



DEATH-m-LIFE. 

Blest is the babe that dies within the 

womb. 
Blest is the corpse which lies within the 

tomb. 
And blest that death for which this life 

makes room. 

But dreary is the tomb where the corpse 

lies : 
And wretched is the womb where the 

child dies : 
And curst that death which steals this 

life's disguise. 



KING LIMOS. 

There once was a wicked, old, gray 
king — 
Long damned, as I have reason to 
know. 
For he was buried (and no bad thing !) 
Hundreds of years ago. 

His wicked old heart had grown so chilled 
That the leech, to warm him, did not 
shrink 

To give him each night a goblet, filled 
With a virgin's blood, to drink. 

"A splenetic legend," . . . you say, of 
course ! 
Yet there may be something in it, too. 
Kill, or be killed . . . which choice were 
the worse ? 
I know not. Solve it you. 



238 



THE WANDERER. 



But even the wolf must have his prey : 
Andeveii the gallows will have herfood : 

And a king, my friend, will have his way, 
Though that way may lie through 
blood. 

My heart is hungry, and must be fed ; 

My life is empty, and must be filled ; 
One is not a Ghoul, to live on the dead : 

What then if fresh blood be spilled ? 

We follow the way that nature leads. 

What's the very first thing that we 
learn ? To devour. 
Each life the death of some other needs 

To help it from hour to hour. 

From the animalcule that swallows his 
friends, 

Nothing loath, in the wave as it rolls, 
To man, as we see him, this law ascends ; 

'T is the same in the world of souls. 

The law of the one is still to absorb : 
To be absorbed is the other's lot : — 

The lesser orb by the larger orb, 

The weak by the strong . . . why not ? 

My want 's at the worst : so why should 
I spare 
(Since just such a thing my want sup- 
plies) 
This little girl with the silky hair, 
And the love in her two large eyes ? 



THE FUGITIVE. 

Therp is no quiet left in life, 
Not any moment brings me rest : 



Forevermore, from shore to shore, 
I bear about a laden breast. 

I see new lands : I meet new men : 
I learn strange tongues in novel places. 

I cannot chase one phantom face 

That haunts me, spite of newer faces. 

For me the wine is poured by night. 
And deep enough to drown much sad- 
ness ; 

But from the cup that face looks up, 
And mirth and music turn to madness. 

There 's many a lip that 's warm for me : 
Many a heart with passion bounding : 

But ah, my breast, when closest prest. 
Creeps to a cold step near me sounding. 

To this dark penthouse of the mind 
I lure the bat-winged Sleep in vain ; 

For on his wings a dream he brings 
That deepens all the dark with pain. 

I may write books which friends will 
praise, 
I may win fame, I may win treasui'e ; 
But hope grows less with each success. 
And pain grows more with every pleas- 
ure. 

The draughts I drain to slake my thirst 
But fuel more the infernal flame. 

There tangs a sting in everything : — 
The more I change, the more the same ! 

A man that flies before the pest. 

From wind to wind my course is whirled. 

This fly accurst stung lo first, 
And drove her wild across the woiid ! 



THE SHORE. 

Can it be women that walk in the sea-mist under the cliffs there ? 

Where, 'neath a briny bow, creaming, advances the lip 
Of the foam, and out from the sand-choked anchors, on to the skiffs there, 

The long ropes swing through the surge, as it tumbles ; and glitter, and drip. 

All the place in a lurid, glimmering, emerald glory. 

Glares like a Titan world come back under heaven again : 
Yonder, up there, are the steeps of the sea-kings, famous in story ; 

But who are they on the beach ? They are neither women, nor men. 

Who knows, are they the land's, or the water's, living creatures ? 
Bom of the boiling sea ? nurst in the seething storms ? 



IN HOLLAND. 239 

With their woman's hair dishevelled over their stern male features, i 
Striding, bare to the knee ; magnified maritime forms ! 

They may be the mothers and wives, they may be the sisters and daughters j 

Of men on the dark mid-seas, alone in those black-coiled hulls, j 

That toil 'neath yon white cloud, whence the moon will rise o'er the waters , 

To-night, with her face on fire, if the wind in the evening lulls. .; 

But they may be merely visions, such as only sick men witness : 

(Sitting as I sit here, filled with a wild regret), i 

Framed from the sea's misshapen spume with a horrible fitness \ 
To the winds in which they walk, and the surges by which they are wet : — 

Salamanders, sea-wolves, witches, warlocks ; marine monsters, j 

Which the dying seaman beholds, when the rats are swimming a,way, ,; 

And an Indian wind 'gins hiss from an unknown isle, and alone stirs j 

The broken cloud which burns on the verge of the dead, red day, : 

I know not. *A11 in my mind is confused ; nor can I dissever i 

The mould of the visible world from the shape of my thoughts in me. i 

The Inward and Outward are fused : and, through them, murmur forever ■ 
The sorrow whose sound is the wind, and the roar of the limitless sea- 

i 



THE NORTH SEA. \ 

By the gray sand-hills, o'er the cold sea-shore ; where, dumbly peering. 

Pass the pale-sailed ships, scornfully, silently ; wheeling and veering ! 

Swift out of sight again ; while the v. .nd searches what it finds never, ; 

O'er the sand-reaches, bays, billows, blown beaches, — homeless forever ! j 

And, in a vision of the bare heaven seen and soon lost again, i 

Over the rolling foam, out in the mid-seas, round by the coast again, j 

Hovers the sea-gull, poised in the wind above, o'er the bleak surges, ; 

In the green briny gleam, briefly revealed and gone ; . . . fleet, as emerges 

Out of the tumult of some brain where memory labors, and fretfully j 

Moans all the night-long, — a wild winged hope, soon fading regretfully. I 

Here walk the lost Gods o' dark Scandinavia, morning and even ; 

Faint pale divinities, realmless and sorrowful, exiled from Heaven ; \ 

Burthened with memories of old theogonies ; each ruined monarchy i 

Roaming amazed by seas oblivious of ancient fealty. 1 

Never, again at the tables of Odin, in their lost Banquet Hall, 

Shall they from golden cups drink, hearing golden harps, harping high festival, j 

Never praise bright-haired Freya, in Vingolf, for her lost loveliness ! ] 

Never, with ^Egir, sail round cool moonlit isles of green wilderness ! ; 

Here on the lone wind, through the long twilight, when day is waning. 

Many a hopeless voice near the night is heard coldly complaining, \ 

Here, in the glimmering darkness, when winds are dropped, and not a seaman 

sings j 

From cape or foreland, pause, and pass silently, forms of discrowned kings, i 

With sweeping, floating folds of dim garments ; wandering in wonder 
OF their own aspect ; trooping towards midnight ; feeling for thunder. 
Here, in the afternoon ; while, in her father's boat, heavily laden. 

Mending the torn nets, sings u]) the bleak bay the Fisher- Maiden, i 

I too, forlornly wandering, wandering, see, with the mind's eye, ■ 

Shadows beside me, . . . (hearing the wave moan, hearing the wind sigh) . . • 
Shadows, and images balefully beautiful, of days departed. : 



240 



THE WANDERER. 



Sounds of faint footsteps, gleams of pale foreheads, make me sad-hearted ; 

Sad for the lost, irretrievable sweetness of former hours ; 

Sad with delirious, desolate odors, from faded flowers ; 

Sad for the beautiful gold hair, the exquisite, exquisite graces 

Of a diviue face, hopelessly unlike all other faces ! 

O'er the gray sand-hills (where I sit sullenly, full of black fancies), 

Nipt by the sea-wind, drenched by the sea-salt, little wild pansies 

Flower, and freshly tremble, and twinkle ; sweet sisterhoods, 

Lone, and how lovely, with their frail green stems, and dark purple hoods I 

Here, even here in the midst of monotonous, fixt desolation. 

Nature has touches of tenderness, beauties of young variation ; 

Where, my heart, in thy ruined, and desolate, desolate places. 

Springs there a floweret, or gleams there the green of a single oasis ? 

Hidden, it may be perchance, and 1 know it not . . . hidden yet inviolate. 

Pushes the germ of an unconscious rapture in me, like the violet 

Which, on the bosom of March, the snows cover and keep till the coming 

Of April, the first bee shall find, when he wanders, and welcome it humming. 

Teach me, thou North where the winds lie in ambush ; the rains and foul weather 

Are stored in the house of the storms ; and the snow-flakes are garnered together ; 

Where man's stern, dominate, sovereign intelligence holds in allegiance 

Whatever blue Sirius beholds on this Earth-ball, — all seas, and all regions ; 

The iron in the hill's heart ; the spirit in the loadstone ; the ice in the poles ; 

All powers, all dominions ; ships ; merchandise ; armaments ; beasts ; human 

souls ; . . .' 
Teach me thy secrets : teach to refrain, to restrain, to be still ; 
Teach me unspoken, steadfast endurance ; — the silence of Will ! 



A NIGHT IN THE FISHERMAN'S 
HUT. 

PART I. 

THE fisherman's DAUGHTER. 

If the wind had been blowing the Devil 
this way 
The midnight could scarcely have 
grown more unholy. 
Or the sea have found secrets more 
wicked to say 
To the toothless old crags it is hiding 
there wholly. 

I love well the darkness. I love well 
the sound 
Of the thunder-drift, howling this way 
over ocean. 
For 't is though as in nature my spirit 
had found 
Atrouble akin to its own fierce emotion. 

The hoarse night may howl herself silent 
for me. 
When the silence comes, then comes 
the howling within. 



I am drenched to my knees in the surf 
of the sea. 
And wet with the salt bitter rain to 
the skin. 

Let it thunder and lighten ! this world's 
ruined angel 
Is but fooled by desire like the frailest 
of men ; 
Both seek in hysterics life's awful evan- 
gel, 
Then both settle down to life's silence 
again. 

Well I know the wild spirits of water 
and air. 
When the lean morrow turns up its 
cynical gray, 
WiU, baffled, revert with familiar de- 
spair 
To their old listless work, in their old 
helpless way. 

Yonder 's the light in the Fisherman's 
hut: 
But the old wolf himself is, I know, 
off at sea. 



IN HOLLAND. 



241 



And I see through the chinks, though 
the shutters be shut, 
By the firelight that some one is 
watching for me. 

Three years ago, on this very same night, 
I walked in a ballroom of perfume and 
splendor 
With a pearl-bedecked lady below the 
lamplight : — 
Now I walk with the wild wind, 
whose breath is more tender. 

Hark ! the horses of ocean that crouch 
at my feet, ' 
They are moaning in impotent pain 
on the beach ! 
Lo ! the stei'm-light, that swathes in its 
blue winding-sheet 
That lone desert of sky, where the 
stars are dead, each ! 

Holloa, there ! open, you little wild 
girl! 
Hush, ... 't is her soft little feet o er 
the floor. 
Stay not to tie up a single dark curl. 
But quick with the candle, and open 
the door. 

One kiss ? . . . there 's twenty ! . . . but 
first, take my coat there. 
Salt as a sea-sponge, and dripping all 
through. 
The old wolf, your father, is out in the 
boat there. 
Hark to the thunder ! ... we 're safe, 
— I and you. 

Put on the kettle. And now for the 
cask 
Of that famous old rum of your father's, 
the king 
Would have clawed on our frontier. 
There, fill me the flask. 
Ah, what a quick, little, neat-handed 
thing ! 

There 's my pipe. Stufi' it with black 
negro -head. 
Soon I shall be in the cloud-land of 
glory. 
Faith, 't is better with you, dear, than 
'fore the mast-head. 
With such liglits at the windows of 
night's upper story ! 
16 



Next, over the round open hole in the 
shutter 
You may pin up your shawl, . . . lest 
a mermaid should peep. 
Come, now, the kettle 's beginning to 
splutter. 
And the cat recomposes herself into 
sleep. 

Poor little naked feet, . . . put them up 
there . . . 
Little white foam-flakes ! and now the 
soft head. 
Here, on my shoulder j while all the 
dark hair 
Falls round us like sea-weed. What 
matter the bed 

If sleep will visit it, if kisses feel there 

Sweetasthey feel under curtains of silk ? 
So, shut your eyes, while the firelight 
will steal there 
O'er the black bear-skin, the arm 
white as milk ! 

Meanwhile I '11 tell to you all I remember 
Of the old legend, the northern romance 
I heard of in Sweden, that snowy De- 
cember 
I passed thei-e, about the wild Lord 
Rosencrantz. 

Then, when you 're tired, take the cards 
from the cupboard. 
Thumbed over by every old thief in 
our crew, 
And I '11 tell you your fortune, you 
little Dame Hubbard ; 
My own has been squandered on 
witches like you. 

Knave, King, and Queen, all the villa- 
nous pack of 'em, 
I know what they're worth in the 
game, and have found 
Upon all the trump-cards the small mark 
at the back of 'em. 
The Devil's nail-mark, who still cheats 
us all round. 



PART II. 

THE LEGEND OF LORD ROSENCKANTZ. 

The lamps in the castle hall burn bright. 
And the music sounds, and the dancers 
dance. 



242 



THE WANDERER. 



And lovely the young Queen looks to- 
night, 
But pale is Lord Rosencrantz. 

Lord Rosencrantz is always pale. 

But never more deadly pale than 
now ... 
0, there is a whisper, — an ancient 
tale, — 
A rumor, . . . but who should know ? 

He has stepped to the dais. He has 
taken her hand. 
And she gives it him with a tender 
glance. 
And the hauthoys sound, and the dancers 
stand. 
And envy Lord Rosencrantz. 

That jewelled hand to his lips he prest ; 
And lightly he leads her towards the 
dance : 
And the blush on the young Queen's 
cheek confest 
Her love for Lord Rosencrantz. 

The moon at the mullioned window 
shone ; 
There a face and a hand in the moon- 
light glance ; 
But that face and that hand were seen 
of none. 
Save only Lord Rosencrantz. 

A league aloof in the forest-land 

There 's a dead black pool, where a 
man by chance 

. . . Again, again, that beckoning hand ! 
And it beckons Lord Rosencrantz, 

While the young Queen turned to whis- 
per him. 
Lord Rosencrantz from the hall was 
gone ; 
And the hautboys ceased, and the lamps 
grew dim, 
And the castle clock struck One ! 



It is a bleak December night. 
And the snow on the highway gleams 
by fits : 
But the fire on the cottage -hearth bums 
bright. 
Where the little maiden sits. 



Her spinning-wheel she has laid aside ; 
And her blue eyes soft in the firelight 
glance ; 
As she leans with love, and she leans 
with pride, 
On the breast of Lord Rosenci-antz. 

Mother 's asleep, up stairs in bed : 
And the black cat, she looks wondrous 
wise 

As she licks her paws in the firelight red, 
And glares with her two green eyes : 

And the little maiden is half afraid, 
And closely she clings to Lord Rosen- 
crantz ; 
For she has been reading, that little 
maid. 
All day, in an old romance, 

A legend wild of a wicked pool 
A league aloof in the forest-land. 

And a crime done there, and a sinful 
soul. 
And an awful face and hand. 

" Our little cottage is bleak and drear," 
Says the little maid to Lord Rosen- 
crantz ; 
"And this is the loneliest time of the 
year. 
And oft, when the wind, by chance, 

" The ivy beats on the window-pane, 
I wake to the sound in the gusty 
nights ; 

And often, outside, in the drift and rain, 
There seem to pass strange sights. 

"And 0, it is dreary here alone ! 
When mother's asleep, in bed, up 
stairs, 
And the black cat, there, to the forest 
is gone, 
— Look at her, how she glares ! " 

"Thou little maiden, my heart's own 

bliss. 

Have thou no fear, for I love thee 

well ; 

And sweetest it is upon nights like this, 

When the wind, like the blast of hell, 

"Roars up and down in the chimneys 
old. 
And the wolf howls over the distant 
snow. 



IN HOLLAND. 



243 



To kiss away botli the niglit and the 
cold 
With such kisses as we kiss now." 

•' Ah ! more than life I love thee, dear ! " 
Says the little maiden with eyes so 
blue ; 
"And, when thou art near, I have no 
fear, 
Whatever the night may do. 

"But 0, it is dreary when thou art 
away ! 
And in bed all night I pray for thee : 
Now tell me, thou dearest heart, and 
say, 
Dost thou ever pray for me ? " 

**Thou little maiden, I thank thee 
much. 
And well I would thou shouldst pray 
for me ; 
But I am a sinful man, and such 
As ill should pray for thee. " 

Hist ! . . . was it a face at the window 
past ? 

Or was it the ivy leaf, by chance. 
Tapping the pane in the fitful blast. 

That startled Lord Rosencrantz ? 

The little maid, she has seen it plain. 
For she shrieked, and down she fell 
in a swoon : 

Mutely it came, and went again. 
In the light of the winter moon. 



The young Queen, — 0, but her face 
was sweet ! — 
She died on the night that she was 
wed : 
And they laid her out in her winding- 
sheet. 
Stark on her marriage-bed. 

The little maiden, she went mad ; 

But her soft blue eyes still smiled the 
same, 
With ever that wistful smile they had : 

Her mother, she died of shame. 

The black cat lived from house to house. 
And every night to the forest hied ; 

And she killed many a rat and mouse 
Before the day she died. 



And do you wish that I should de- 
clare 
What was the end of Lord Rosen- 
crantz ? 
Ah ! look in my heart, you will find it 
there, 
— The end of the old romance 1 



PART III. 

DAYBREAK. 

Yes, you have guessed it. The wild 
Rosencrantz, 
It is I, dear, the wicked one ; who but 
; I, maiden ? 

jMy life is a tattered and worn-out ro- 
mance, 
\And my heart with the curse of the 
Past hath been laden : 



For still, where I wander or linger, for- 
ever 
Comes a skeleton hand that is beckon- 
ing for me ; 
And still, dogging my footsteps, life's 
long Never-never 
Pursues me, wherever my footsteps 
may be : 

The star of my course hath been long 
ago set, dear ; 
And the wind is my pilot, wherever 
he blows : 
He cannot blow from me what I would 
forget, dear, 
Nor blow to me that which I seek for, 
— repose. 

What ! if I were the Devil himself, 
would you cling to me. 
Bear my ill humors, and share my 
wild nights ? 
Crouch by me, fear me not, stay by me, 
sing to me, 
While the dark hau^jts us with sounds 
and with sights ? 

Follow me far away, pine not, but smile 
to me. 
Never ask questions, and always be 

say? 

Still the dear eyes meekly turned all the 
while to me, 
Watchful the night through, and pa- 
tient the day ? 



244 



THE WANDERER, 



What ! if this hand, that now strays 
through your tresses, 
Three years ago had been dabbled in 
gore ? 
What ! if this lip, that your lip now 
caresses, 
A corpse had been pressing but three 
years before ? 

Well then, behold ! . . . 't is the gray 
light of morning 
That breaks o'er the desolate waters 
. . . and hark ! 
'T is the first signal shot from my boat 
gives me warning : 
The dark moves away : and I follow 
the lark. 

On with your hat and your cloak ! you 
are mine, child, 
Mine and the fiend's that pursues me, 
henceforth ! 
We must be far, ere day breaks, o'er the 
brine, child : 
It may be south I go, it may be north. 

What ! really fetching your hat and 
your cloak, dear ? 
Sweet little fool. Kiss me quick now, 
and laugh ! 
All I have said to you was but a joke, 
dear : 
Half was in folly, in wantonness half. 



PART IV. 
BREAKFAST, 

At, maiden : the whole of my story to 
you 
Was but a deception, a silly romance : 
From the first to the last word, no word 
of it true ; 
And my name 's Owen Meredith, not 
Rosencrantz. 

I never was loved by a Queen, I declare : 
And no little maiden for me has gone 
mad : 
I never committed a murder, I swear ; 
And I probably should have been 
hanged if I had. 

I never have gold to the Devil my soul ; 
And hut small is the price he would 
give me, I know : 



I live much as other folks live, on the 
whole : 
And the worst thing in me 's my di- 
gestion . . . heigh ho ! 

Let us leave to the night-wind the 
thoughts which he brings. 
And leave to the darkness the powers 
of the dark ; 
For my hopes o'er the sea lightly flit, 
like the wings 
Of the curlews that hover and poise 
round my bark. 

Leave the wind and the water to mutter 
together 
Their weird metaphysical grief, as of 
old, 
For day's business begins, and the clerk 
of the weather 
To the powers of the air doth his pur- 
pose unfold. 

Be you sure those dread Titans, what- 
ever they be, 
That sport with this ball in the great 
courts of Time, 
To play practical jokes upon j'^ou, dear, 
and me, 
Will never desist from a sport so sub- 
lime. 

The old Oligarchy of Greece, now abol- 
ished. 
Were idle aristocrats fond of the arts, 
But though thus refined, all their tastes 
were so polished, 
They were turbulent, dissolute gods, 
without hearts. 

They neglected their business, they gave 
themselves airs, 
Read the poets in Greek, sipped their 
wine, took their rest, 
Never troubling their beautiful heads 
with alfairs. 
And as for their morals, the least said, 
the best. 

The scandal grew greater and greater : 
and then 
An appeal to the people was formally 
made. 
The old gods were displaced by the suf- 
frage of men. 
And a popular government formed in 
their stead. 



IN HOLLAND. 



245 



But these are high matters of state, — I 
and you 
May be thankful, meanwhile, we have 
something to eat, 
And. nothing, just now, more important 
to do. 
Than to sit down at once, and say 
grace before meat. 

You may boil me some coffee, an egg, if 
it 's handy, 
The sea 's rolling mountains just now. 
I shall wait 
For King Neptune's moUissima tempora 
fandi, 
Who will presently lift up his curly 
white pate, 

Bid Eurus and Notus to mind their own 
business. 
And make me a speech in Hexameters 
slow ; 
While I, by the honor elated to dizziness. 
Shall yield him my offerings, and 
make him my bow. 



A DREAM. 

/ I HAD a quiet dream last night : 
/ For I dreamed that I was dead ; 
* Wrapped around in my grave-clothes 
> white. 

With my gravestone at my head. 

I lay in a land I have not seen, 

In a place I do not know, 
And the grass was deathly, deathly green 

Which over my grave did grow. 

The place was as still as still could be. 
With a few stars in the sky, 

And an ocean whose waves I could not 
see. 
Though I heard them moan hard by. 

There was a bird in a branch of yew, 

Building a little nest. 
The stars looked far and very few. 

And I lay all at rest. 

There came a footstep through the grass, 
And a feeling through the mould : 

And a woman pale did over me pass, 
With hair like snakes of gold. 



She read my name upon my grave : 
She read my name with a smile. 

A wild moan came from a wandering 
wave. 
But the stars smiled all the while. 

The stars smiled soft. That woman pale 

Over my grave did move. 
Singing all to herself a tale 

Of one that died for love. 

There came a sparrow-hawk to the tree, 

The little bird to slay : 
Tljere came a ship from over the sea. 

To take that woman away. 

The little bird I wished to save. 
To finish his nest so sweet : • 

But so deep I lay within my grave 
That I could not move my feet. 

That woman pale I wished to keep 

To finish the tale I heard : 
But within my grave I lay so deep 

That I could not speak a word. 



KING SOLOMON. 

King Solomon stood, in his crown of 
gold, 
Between the pillars, before the altar 
In the House of the Lord. And the 
King was old. 
And his strength began to falter, 
So that he leaned on his ebony staff. 
Sealed with the seal of the Pentegraph. 

All of the golden fretted work. 

Without and within so rich and rare, 

As high as the nest of the building stork. 
Those pillars of cedar were : — 

Wrought up to the brazen chapiters 

Of the Sidonian artificers. 

And the King stood still as a carven 



The carven cedarn beams below. 
In his purple robe, with his signet-ring. 

And his beard as white as snow. 
And his face to the Oracle, where the 

hymn 
Dies under the wing of the chembim. 

The wings fold over the Oracle, 
And cover the heart and eyes of God : 



246 



THE WANDEEER. 



The Spouse with pomegranate, lily, and 

bell, 
Is glorious in her abode ; 
For with gold of Ophir, and scent of 

myrrh, 
And purple of Tyre, the King clothed 

her. 

By the soul of each slumbro'ss instrument 
Drawn soft through the musical misty 
air. 
The stream of the folk that came and 
went. 
For worship, and praise, and prayej. 
Flowed to and fro, and up and down, 
And round the King in his gold-sn 
crown. 
• 
And it came to pass, as the King stoiKl 
there, 
And looked on the house he had hvall, 
with pride. 
That the Hand of the Lord came un?- 
ware. 
And touched him ; so that he died, 
In his purple robe, with his signet-ring 
And the crown wherewith they ha<? 
crowned him king. 

And the stream of the folk that came 
and went 
To worship the Lord with prayer and 
praise, 
"Went softly ever, in wonderment. 

For the King stood there always ; 
And it was solemn and strange to behold 
That dead king crowned with a crown of 



And the stream of life, as it went and 

came. 
Ever for worship and praise and prayer, 
"Was awed by the face, and the fear, and 

the fame 
Of the dead king standing there ; 
For his hair was so white, and his eyes 

so cold. 
That they left him alone with his crown 

of gold. 

So King Solomon stood up, dead, in the 

House 
Of the Lord, held there by the Pente- 

graph. 
Until out from a pillar there ran a red 

mouse. 
And gnawed through his ebony staff : 
Then, flat on his face, the King fell 

down : 
And they picked from the dust a golden 

crown.* 



•A-Yor he leaned on his ebony staff upright ; 
And over his shoulders the purple 
robe ; 
And his hair and his beard were both 
snow-white 
And the fear of him filled the globe ; 
So that none dared touch him, though 

he was dead, 
He looked so royal about the head. 

And the moons were changed : and the 
years rolled on : 
And the new king reigned in the old 
king's stead : 
And men were married and buried anon ; 
But the King stood, stark and dead ; 
Leaning upright on his ebony staff ; 
• Preserved by^he sign of the Pentegraph. 



CORDELIA. 

Though thou never hast sought to divine 

it. 
Though to know it thou hast not a care, 
^^et my heart can no longer confine it, 
Ti'ough my lip may be blanched to de- 
clare 
Thai J love thee, revere thee, adore thee, 
my di-eam, my desire, my despair ! 

Though iu life it may never be given 
To my heari, ^o repose upon thine ; 
Though neither on earth, nor in heaveUj 
May the bliss I hav-^ dreamed of be mine ; 
Yet thou canst iiot forbid me, ia distance. 
And sUence, and long icnely years. 
To love thee, despite thy resistance. 
And bless thee, despite of my tears. 

Ah me, couldst thou love me ! . . . Be- 
lieve me. 
How I hang on the tones of thy voice ; 
How the least sigh thou sighest can grieve 

.me, 
The least smile thou smilest rejoice : 



* My knowledge of the Rabbinical legend 
which suggested this Poem is one among the 
many debts I owe to my friend Eobert Brown- 
ing. I hope these lines may remind him of 
hours which his society rendered |)recious and 
delightful to me, i»nd which are among the most 
pleasant memories of my life. 



IN HOLLAND. 



247 



In thy face, how I watch every shade 

there ; 
In thine eyes, how I learn every look ; 
How the least sign thy spirit hath made 

there 
My heart reads, and writes in its book ! 

And each day of my life my love shapes 
me 

From the mien that thou wearest. Be- 
loved. 

Thou hast not a grace that escapes me. 

Nor a movement that leaves me unmoved. 

I live but to see thee, to hear thee ; 

I count but the hours where thou art ; 

I ask — only ask — to be near thee, 

Albeit so far from thy heart. 

m 

In my life's lonely galleries never 
Will be silenced thy lightest footfall : 
For it lingers, and echoes, forever 
Unto Memory mourning o'er all. 
All thy fair little footsteps are bright 
O'er the dark troubled spirit in me. 
As the tracks of some sweet water-sprite 
O'er the heaving and desolate sea. 
And, though cold and unkind be thine 

eyes. 
Yet, unchilled their unkindness below. 
In my heart all its love for thee lies, 
Like a violet covered by snow. 

Little child ! . . . were it mine to watch 
o'er thee, 

To guide, and to guard, and to soothe ; 

To shape the long pathway before thee, 

And all that was rugged to smooth ; 

To kneel at one bedside by night, 

And mingle our souls in one prayer ; 

And, awaked by the same morning- 
light. 

The, same daily duties to share ; 

Until Age with his silver dimmed slowly 
Those dear golden tresses of thine ; 
And Memory rendered thrice holy 
The love in this poor heart of mine ; 

Ah, never . . . (recalling together, 
By one hearth, in our life's winter time. 
Our youth, with its lost summer weather. 
And our love, in its first golden prime,) 
Should those loved lips have cause to re- 
cord 
One word of unkindness from me, 
Or my heart cease to bless the least word 
Of kindness once spoken by thee ! 



But, whatever my path, and whatever 

The future may fashion for thine. 

Thy life, believe me, can never. 

My beloved, be indifferent to mine. 

When far from the sight of thy beauty, 

Pursuing, unaided, alone, 

The path of man's difficult duty 

In the land where my lot may be thrown ; 

When my steps move no more in the 

place 
Where thou art : and the brief days of 

yore 
Are forgotten : and even my face 
In thy life is remembered no more ; 
Yet in rmj life will live thy least feature ; 
I shall mourn the lost light of thine eyes ; 
And on earth there will yet be one nature 
That must yearn after thine till it dies. 



"YE SEEK JESUS OF NAZARETH 
WHICH WAS CRUCIFIED : HE 
IS RISEN : HE IS NOT HERE." 
Mark xvi. 6. 

If Jesus came to earth again. 

And walked, and talked, in field and 
street. 
Who would not lay his human pain 

Low at those heavenly feet ? 

And leave the loom, and leave the lute. 
And leave the volume on the shelf. 

To follow Him, unquestioning, mute, 
If 't were the Lord himself ? 

How many a brow with care o'erwom, 
How many a heart with grief o'erladen, 

How many a youth with love forlorn, 
How many a mourning maiden, 

Would leave the baffling earthly prize 
Which fails the earthly, weak en- 
deavor. 

To gaze into those holy eyes. 
And drink content forever ! 

The mortal hope, I ask with tears 

Of Heaven, to soothe this mortal 
pain, — 

The dream of all my darkened years, — 
I should not cling to then. 

The pride that prompts the bitter jest — 
(Sharp styptic of a bleeding heart ! ) 

Would fail, and humbly leave confest 
The sin that brought the smart, 



248 



THE WANDERER. 



If I might crouch within the fold 
Of that white robe (a wounded bird) ; 

The face that Mary saw behold, 
And hear the words she heard. 

I would not ask one word of all 

That now my nature yearns to know ; — 

The legend of the ancient Fall ; 
The source of human woe : 

What hopes in other worlds may hide ; 

What griefs yet unexplored in this ; 
How fares the spirit within the wide 

Waste tract of that abyss 

Which scares the heart (since all we know 
Of life is only conscious sorrow) 

Lest novel life be novel woe 

In death's undawned to-morrow ; 

I would not ask one word of this, 
If I might only hide my head 

On that beloved breast, and kiss 
The wounds where Jesus bled. 

And I, where'er He went, would go, 
Nor question where the path might 
lead. 

Enough to know that, here below, 
I walked with God indeed ! 

His sheep along the cool, the shade. 
By the still watercourse He leads, 

His lambs upon His breast are laid, 
His hungry ones He feeds. 

Safe in His bosom I should lie, 

Hearing, where'er His steps might be. 

Calm waters, murmuring, murmuring by. 
To meet the mighty sea. 

If this be thus, Lord of mine. 
In absence is Thy love forgot ? 

And must J, where I walk, repine 
Because I see thee not ? 

If this be thus, if this be thus, 
And our poor prayers yet reach Thee, 
Lord, 

Since we are weak, once more to us 
Reveal the Living Word ! 

Yet is my heart, indeed, so weak 
My course alone I dare not trace ? 

Alas ! I know my heart must break 
Before I see Thy face. 



I loved, with all my human soul, 
A human creature, here below. 

And, though thou bad'st thy sea to roll 
Forever 'twixt us two, 

And though her form I may not see 
Through all my long and lonely life. 

And though she never now may be 
My helpmate and my wife, 

Yet in my dreams her dear eyes shine, 
Yet in my heart her face I bear. 

And yet each holiest thought of mine 
I seem with her to share. 

But, Lord, Thy face I never saw. 
Nor ever heard Thj'human voice : 

My life, beneath an iron law. 
Moves on without my choice. 

No memory of a happier time. 

When in Thine arms, perchance, I 
slept, 
In some lost ante-natal clime, 

My mortal frame hath kept : 

And all is dark — before — behind-. 

I cannot reach Thee, where Thou art, 
I cannot bring Thee to my mind, 

Nor clasp Thee to my heart. 

And this is why, by night and day, 
Still with so many an unseen tear 

These lonely lips have learned to pray 
That God would spare me here. 

While yet my doubtful course I go 
Along the vale of mortal years. 

By Life's dull stream, that will not flow 
As fast as flow my tears, 

One human hand, my hand to take : 
One human heart, my own to raise : 

One loving human voice, to break 
The silence of my days. 

Saviour, if this wild prayer be wrong. 
And what I seek I may not find, 

0, make more hard, and stern, and 
strong, 
The framework of my mind ! 

Or, nearer to me, in the dark 

Of life's low hours, one moment stand, 
And give me keener eyes to mark 

The moving of Thy hand. 



m HOLLAND. 



249 



TO CORDELIA. 

I DO not blame thee, that my life 
Is lonelier now than even before ; 

For hadst thou been, indeed, my wife, 
(Vain dream that cheats no more !) 

The fate, which from my earliest years 
Hath made so dark the path I tread, 

Had taught thee too, perchance, such tears 
As I have learned to shed. 

And that fixed gloom, which souls like 
mine ' 

Are schooled to wear with stubborn 
pride, 
Had cast too dark a shade o'er thine, — 
Hadst tliBu been by my side. 

I blame thee not, that thou shouldst iiee 
From paths where only weeds have 
sprung, 

Though loss of thee is loss to me 
Of all that made youth young. 

For 't is not mine, and 't was not thine. 
To shape our course as first we strove : 

And powers which I could not combine 
Divide me from thy love. 

Alas ! we cannot choose our lives, — 
We can but bear the burthen given. 

In vain the feverish spirit strives 
With unrelenting heaven. 

For who can bid those tyrant stars 

The injustice of their laws repeal ? 
Why ask who makes our prison bars, 
. Since they are made of steel ? 

The star that rules my darkened hour 
Is fixt in reachless sphei'es on high : 

The curse which foils my baffled power 
Is scrawled across the sky. 

My heart knows all it felt, and feels : 
But more than this I shall not know. 

Till He that made the heart reveals 
Why mine must suffer so. 

I only know that, never yet, 

My life hath found what others find, — 
That peace of heart which will not fret 

The fibres of the mind. 

I only know that not for me 
The human love, the clasp, the kiss ; 



M}' love in other worlds must be, — 
Why was I born in this ? 

The bee is framed to find her food 
In every wayside flower and bell, 

And build within the hollow wood 
Her own ambrosial cell : 

The spider hath not learned her art, 
A home in ruined towers to spin ; 

But what it seeks, my heart, my heart 
Is all unskilled to win. 

The world was filled, ere I was born. 
With man and maid, with bower and 
brake, 

And nothing but the barren thorn 
Eemained for me to take : 

I took the thorn, I wove it round, 
I made a piercing crown to wear : 

My own sad hands myself have crowned,. 
Lord of my own despair. 

That which we are, we are. 'T were 
vain 
To plant with toil what will not grow. 
The cloud will break, and bring the 
rain. 
Whether we reap or sow. 

I cannot turn the thunder-blast. 
Nor pluck the levin's lurid root ; 

I cannot change the changeless past. 
Nor make the ocean mute. 

And if the bolt of death must fall 
Where, bare of head, I walk my way, 

Why let it fall ! I will not call 
To bid the Thunderer stay. 

'T is much to know, whate'er betide 
The pilgrim path I pace alone, 

Thou wilt not miss me from thy side 
When its brief course is done. 

Hadst thou been mine, — when skies 
were drear 
And waves were rough, for thy sweet 
sake 
I should have found in all some fear 
My inmost breast to shake : 

But now, his fill the blast may blow, 
The sea may rage, the thunder roll, 

For every path by which I go 
Will reach the self-same goal. 



250 



THE WANDERER. 



Too proud to fij, too weak to cope, 
I yet will wait, nor bow my head. 

Those who have nothing left to hope, 
Have nothing left to di'ead. 



A LETTER TO CORDELIA. 

Perchance, on earth, I shall not see 
thee ever 
Ever again : and my unwritten years 
Are signed out by that desolating 
" Never," 
And blurred with tears. 

'T is hard, so young — so young as I am 
still. 
To feel forevermore from life depart 
All that can flatter the poor human 
will, 
Or fill the heart. 

Yet there was nothing in that sweet, 
and brief. 
And perisht intercourse, now closed 
for me, 
To add one thought unto my bitterest 
grief 
Upbraiding thee. 

'T is somewhat to have known, albeit in 
vain. 
One woman in this sorrowful bad earth, 
Whose very loss can yet bequeathe to 
pain 
New faith in worth. 

If I have overrated, in the wild 

Blind heat of hope, the sense of aught 
which hath 

From the lost vision of thy beauty smiled 
On my lone path. 

My retribution is, that to the last 
I have o'errated, too, my power to 
cope 
With this fierce thought . . . that life 
must all be past 
Without life's hope ; 

And I would bless the chance which let 
me see 
Once more the comfort of thy face, 
although 
It were with beauty never born for me 
That face should glow. 



To see thee — all thou wilt be — loved 
and loving — 
Even though another's — in the years 
to come — 
To watch, once more, thy gracious sweet- 
ness moving 
Through its pure home, — 

Even this would seem less desolate, less 
drear. 
Than never, never to behold thee 
more — 
Never on those beloved lips to hear 
The voice of yore ! 

These weak words, my friend, fell not 
more fast 
Than the weak scalding tears that with 
them fell. 
Nor tears, nor words came, when I saw 
thee last . . . 
Enough ! . . . Farewell. 

Farewell. If that dread Power which 
fashioned man 
To till this planet, free to search and 
find 
The secret of his source as best he can, 
In his own mind, 

Hath any care, apart from that which 
moves 
Earth's myriads through Time's ages 
as they roll, 
For any single human life, or loves 
One separate soul. 

May He, whose wisdom portions out for 
me 
The moonless, changeless midnight of 
the heart. 
Still all his softest sunshine save for thee, 
Where'er thou art : 



'And if, indeed, not any human eyes 

From human tears be free, — may Sol*- 

row bring '"^ 

Pnly to thee her April-rain, whose sighs 

Soothe flowers in Spring. i 



FAILURE. i 

I HAVE seen those that wore Heaven's 
armor worsted : 
I have heard Truth lie : 



IN HOLLAND. 



251 



Seen Life, beside the founts for which 
it thirsted, 
Curse God and die : 

I have felt the hand, whose touch was 
rapture, braiding 
Among my hair 
Love's choicest flowerets, and have found 
how fading 
Those garlands were : 

I have watched my first and holiest hopes 
depart. 
One after one : 
I have held the hand of Death upon my 
heart. 
And made no moan : 

I have seen her whom life's whole sacrifice 

AVas made to keep, 
Pass coldly by me with a stranger's eyes. 

Yet did not weep ; 

Now even my body fails me ; and my brow 

Aches night and day : 
I am weak with over-work : how can I 
now 

Go forth and play ? 

What ! now that Youth's forgotten as- 
pirations 
Are all no more, 
Eest there, indeed, all Youth's glad rec- 
reations, 
— ■■ An untried store ? 

Alas, what skills this heart of sad expe- 
rience. 
This frame o'erwrought. 
This memory with life 's motion all at 
variance, 
This aching thought ? 

How shall I come, with these, to follow 
pleasure 
Where others find it ? 
, Will not their sad steps mar the merriest 
measure, 
Or lag behind it ? 

Still must the man move sadlier for the 
dreams 
That mocked the boy ; 
And, having failed to achieve, must still, 
it seems. 
Fail to enjoy. 



It is no common failure, to have failed 

Where man hath given 
A whole life's effort to the task assailed — 

Spent earth on heaven. 

If error and if failure enter here, 
What helps repentance ? 

Remember this, Lord, in thy severe 
Last sentence ! 



MISANTHROPOS. 

Xlacra kovis koI iravra yeKus /cai iravra 
TO fMTjBev, 

Day's last light is dying out. 

All the place grows dim and drear : 
See ! the grisly bat 's about. 

There is nothing left to fear • 
Little left to doubt. 

Not a note of music flits 

O'er the slackened hai-pstrings yonder 
From the skeleton that sits 

By the broken harp, to ponder 
(While the spider knits 

Webs in each black socket-hole) 

Where is all the music fled. 
Music, hath it, then, a goal ? , . . 

Broken hai-p, and brainless head ! 
Silent song and soul ! 

Not a light in yonder sky, 
Save that single wicked star, 

Leering with its wanton eye 
Through the shattered window-bar ; 

Come to see me die ! 

All, save this, the monstrous night 
Hath erased and blotted bare 

As the fool's brain . . . God's last light 
Winking at the Fiend's work there, -^ 

Wrong made worse by right ! 

Gone the voice, the face, of yore ! 

Gone the dream of golden hair ! 
Gone the garb that Falsehood wore ! 

Gone the shame of being bare 1 
We may close the door. 

All the guests are slunk away. 

Not a footstep on the stairs J 
Not a friend here, left to say 

"Amen" to a sinner's prayers, 
If he cared to pray ! 



252 



THE WANDERER. 



Gone is Friendship's friendliness, 

After Love's fidelity : 
Gone is Honor in the mess, 

Spat upon by Charity : 
Faith has fled Distress. 

Those grim tipstaves at the gate 
Freely may their work begin. 

Let them in ! they shall not wait. 
There is little now within 

Left for Scorn and Hate. 

O, no doubt the air is foul ! 

'T is the last lamp spits and stinks, 
Shuddering downward in the bowl 

Of the socket, from the brinks. 
What 's a burned-out soul ? 

Let them all go, unreproved ! 

For the source of tears is dried. 
What! . . . One rests? . . . hath nothing 
moved 

That pale woman from my side. 
Whom I never loved ? 

You, with those dim eyes of yours. 
Sadder than all eyes save mine ! 

That dim forehead which immures 
Such faint helpless griefs, that pine 

For such hopeless cures ! 

Must you love me, spite of loathing ? 

Can't you leave me where I 'm lying ? 
0, . . . you wait for our betrothing ? 

I escape you, though, — by dying ! 
Lay out my death- clothing. 

Well I would that your white face 

Were abolisht out of sight, 
With the glory and the grace 

Swallowed long ago in night, — 
Gone, — without a trace ! 

Reach me down my golden hai"p. 

Set it here, beside my knee. 
Never fear that I shall warp 

All the chords of ecstasy, 
Striking them too sharp ! 

Crown me with my crown of flowers. 

Faded roses every one ! 
Pluckt in those long-perisht bowers, 

By the nightshade overrun, — 
Fit for brows like ours ! 

Fill me, now, my golden cup. 
Pour the black wine to the brim ! 



Till within me, while I sup. 

All the fires, long quenched and dim, 
Flare, one moment, up. 

I will sing you a last song. 

I will pledge you a last health . . . 
Here 's to Weakness seeming strong ! 

Here 's to Want that follows Wealth ! 
Here 's to Right gone wrong ! 

Curse me now the Oppressor's rod. 
And the meanness of the weak ; 

And the fool that apes the nod ; 
And the world at hide and seek 

With the wrath of God. 

Dreams of man's unvalued good, 
By mankind's unholy means ! 

Curse the people in their mud ! 
And the wicked Kings and Queens, 

Lying by the Rood. 

Fill ! to every plague . . . and first. 
Love, that breeds its own decay ; 

Rotten, ere the blossom burst. 
Next, the friend that slinks away. 

When you need him worst. 

the world's inhuman ways ! 

And the heartless social lie ! 
And the coward, cheapening praise ! 

And the patience of the sky, 
Lighting such bad days ! 

Cursed be the heritage 

Of the sins we have not sinned ! 
Cursed be this boasting age, 

And the blind that lead the blind 
O'er its creaking stage ! 

the vice within the blood. 
And the sin within the sense ! 

And the fallen angelhood. 

With its yearnings, too immense 

To be understood ! 

Curse the hound with beaten hide. 
When he turns and licks the hand. 

Curse this woman at my side ! 
And the memory of the land 

Where my first love died. 

Cursed be the next and most 

(With whatever curse most kills). 

Me . . . the man whose soul is lost ; 
Fouled by each of all these ills, — 

Filled with death and dust ! 



PALINGENESIS. 



253 



Take away the harp of gold, 
And the empty wine-cup too. 

Ijay me out : for I groM'' cold. 
There is something dim in view, 

"Which must pass untold : — 



Something dim, and something vast, — 

Out of reach of all I say. 
Language ceases . . . husht, aghast. 

What am I, to curse or pray ? 
God succeeds at last ! 



BOOK YL-PALI]:!^GE^ESIS. 



A PRAYER. 

My Saviour, dare I come to Thee, 
Who let the little children come ? 
But I ? . . . Biy soul is faint in me ! 
I come from wandering to and fro 
This weary world. There still his round 
The Accuser goes : but Thee I found 
Not anywhere. Both joy and woe 
Have passed me by. I am too weak 
To grieve or smile. And yet I know 
That tears lie deep in all 1 do. 
The homeless that are sick for home 
Are not so wretched. Ere it break. 
Receive my heart ; and for the sake. 
Not of my sorrows, but of Thine, 
Bend down Thy holy eyes on mine. 
Which are too full of misery 
To see Thee clearly, though they seek. 
Yet, if I heard Thy voice say . . . 

'*Come," 
So might I, dying, die near Thee. 
It shames me not, to have passed by 
The temple-doors in every street 
Where men profaned Thee : but that I 
Have left neglected, choked with weeds. 
Defrauded of its incense sweet 
From holy thoughts and loyal deeds. 
The fane Thou gavest me to enshrine 
Thee in, this wretched heart of mine. 
The Satyr there hath entered in ; 
The Owl that loves the darkened hour ; 
And obscene shapes of night and sin 
Still haunt, where God designed a bower 
For angels. 

Yet I will not say 
How oft I have aspired in vain, 
How toiled along the rugged way. 
And held my faith above my pain. 
For this Thou knowest. Thou knowest 

when 
I faltered, and when I was strong ; 
And how from that of other men 
My fate was different : all the wrong ■ 



Which devastated hope in me : 
The ravaged years ; the excited heart, 
That found in pain its only part 
Of love : the master misery 
That shattered all my early years. 
From which, in vain, I sought to flee : 
Thou knowest the long repentant tears, 
Thou heard' st me crj'' against the spheres. 
So sharp my anguish seemed to be ! 
All this Thou knowest. Though I should 

keep 
Silence, Thou knowest my hands were 

free 
From sin, when all things cried to me 
To sin. Thou knowest that, had I rolled 
My soul in hell-flame fifty-fold. 
My sorrow could not be more deep. 
Lord ! there is nothing hid from Thee. 



EUTHANASIA. 

(WEITTEN AFTER A SEVERE ILLNESS.) 

Spring to the world, and strength to 
me, returns ; 
And flowers return, — but not the 
flowers I knew. 
I live : the fire of life within me burns ; 
But all my life is dead. The land I 
view 
I know not ; nor the life which I regain. 
Within the hollow of the hand of death 
I have lain so long, that now I draw 
the breath 
Of life as unfamiliar, and with pain. 

Of life : but not the life which is no 
more ; — 
That tender, tearful, warm, and pas- 
sionate thing ; 
That wayward, restless, wistful life of 
yore ; 
Which now lies, cold, beneath the 
clasp of Spring, 



254 



THE WANDERER. 



As last year's leaves : but such a life as 
seems 
A strange new-comer, coy and all- 
afraid. 
No motion heaves the heart where it 
is laid, 
Save when the past returns to me in 
dreams. 

In dreams, like memories of another 
world : 
The beauty, and the passion, and the 
pain, 
The wizardry by which my youth was 
whirled 
Round vain desires, — so violent, yet 
so vain ! 
The love which desolated life, yet made 
So dear its desolation : and the creeds 
Which, one by one, snapped in my 
hold like reeds. 
Beneath the weight of need upon them 
laid! 

For each man deems his own sand-house 
secure 
While life's wild waves are lulled ; 
yet who can say, 
If yet his faith's foundations do endure, 
It is not that no wind hath blown 
that way ? 
Must we, even for their beauty's sake, 
keep furled 
Our fairest creeds, lest earth should 

sully them. 
And take what ruder help chance 
sends, to stem 
The rubs and wrenchings of this boister- 
ous world 1 

Alas ! 't is not the creed that saves the 
man : 
It is the man that justifies the creed : 
And eachmust save hisown soul as hecan. 
Since each is burthened with a differ- 
ent need. 
Round ea1ch the bandit passions lurk ; 
and, fast 
And furious, swarm to strip the pil- 
grim bare ; 
Then, oft, in lonely places unaware. 
Pall on him, and do murder him at last. 

And oft the light of truth, which through 
the dark 
We fetched such toilful compass to 
detect. 



Glares through the broken cloud on the 
lost bark. 
And shows the rock — too late, when 
all is wrecked ! 
Not from one watch-tower o'er the deep, 
alone. 
It streams, but lightens there and 

lightens here 
With lights so numberless (like heav- 
en's eighth sphere) 
That all their myriad splendors seem but 



Time was, when it seemed possible to be 
(Then, when this shattered prow first 
felt the foam) 
Columbus to some far Philosophy, 
And bring, perchance, the golden In- 
dies home. 
siren isles of the enchanted main 
Through which I lingered ! altars, 

temples, groves. 
Whelmed in the salt sea wave, that 
rolls and roves 
Around each desolated lost domain ! 

Over all these hath passed the deluge. 
And, 
Saved from the sea, forlornly face to 
face 
With the gaunt ruin of a world, I stand. 
But two alone of all that perisht race 
Survive to share with me my wanderings ; 
Doubt 'and Experience. These my 

steps attend, 
Ever ; and oft above my harp they 
bend. 
And, weeping with me, weep among its 
strings. 

Yet, — saved, though in a land uncon- 
secrate 
By any memory, it seems good to me 
To build an altar to the Lord ; and wait 
Some token, either from the land or sea. 
To point me to my rest, which should 
be near. 
Rude is the work, and simple is my 

skill ; 
Yet, if the hand could answer to the 
will. 
This pile should lack not incense. 
Father, hear 

My cry unto thee. Make thy covenant 
Fast with my spirit. Bind within 
Thy bow 



PALINGENESIS. 



255 



The whole horizon of my tears. I pant 
For Thy refreshing. Bid Thy foun- 
tains flow 
In this dry desert, where no springs I see. 
Before I venture in an unknown land. 
Here will I clear the gi'ound on which 
I stand, 
And justify the hope Thou gavest me. 

I cannot make quite clear what comes 
and goes 
In fitful light, by waning gleams de- 
scried. 
The Spirit, blowing where it listeth, 
blows 
Only at times, some single fold aside 
Of that great veil which hangs o'er the 
Unkiyjwn : 
Yet do the feeble, fleeting lights that 

fall, 
Keveal enough, in part, for hope in all : 
And that seems surest which the least is 
shown. 

God is a spirit. It is also said 

Man is a spirit. Can I therefore deem 

The two in nature separate ? The made 
Hath in it of the Maker. Hence I 
seem 

A step towards light ; — since 't is the 
property 
Of spirit to possess itself in all 
It is possest by ; — halved yet integral ; 

One person, various personality. 

To say the Infinite is that which lies 
Beyond the Finite, . . . were it not to 
set 
A border mark to the immensities ? 

•Far as these mortal senses measure yet 
Their little region of the mighty plan. 
Through valves of birth and death — 

are heard forever 
The finite steps of infinite endeavor 
Moving through Nature and the mind 
of man. 

If man, — the finite spirit, — in infinity 

Alone can find the truth of his ideal, 
Dare I not deem that infinite Divinity 

Within the finite must assume the real ? 
For what so feverish fancy, reckless hurled 

Through a ruined brain, did ever yet 
descry 

A symbol sad enough to signify 
The conscious God of an unconscious 
world ? 



"Wherefore, thus much perceived, to rec- 
ognize 

In God, the infinite spirit of Unity, 
In man, the finite spirit, here implies 

An interchanged perception ; — Deity 
Within humanity made manifest : 

Not here man lonely, there a lonely 
God; 

But, in all paths by human nature trod, 
Infinity in Finity exprest. 

This interchange, upon man's part, I call 
Religion ; revelation on the part 

Of Deity : wherefrom there seems to fall 
'Tis consequence (the point from 
which I start) 

If God and man be one (a unity 

Of which religion is the human side) 
This must in man's religion be descried, 

A consciousness and a reality. 

Whilst man in nature dwells, his God is 
still 
In nature ; thence, in time, there in- 
tervenes 
The Law : he learns to fortify his will 
Against his passions, by external 
means : 
And God becomes the Lawgiver : but 
when 
Corruption in the natural state we see, 
And in the legal hopeless tyranny, 
We seem to need (if needed not till then) 

That which doth uplift nature, and yet 

makes 

More light the heavy letter of the law. 

Then for the Perfect the Imperfect aches. 

Till love is born upon the deeps of awe. 

Yet what of this, . . . that God in nian 

may be. 

And man, though mortal, of a race 

divine. 
If no assurance lives which may incline 
The heart of man to man's divinity ? 

" There is no God "... the Fool saith 
— to his heart, 
Yet shapes a godhead from his intellect. 
Is mind than heart less human, . . . that 
we part 
Thought from affection, and from mind 
erect < 
A deity merely intellectual ? 

If God there be, devoid of sympathy 
For man, he is not man's divinity. 
A God unloving were no God at aU. 



256 



THE WANDERER. 



This felt, ... I ask not ... " What is 
God? "but "What 
Are my relations with Him ? " this 
alone 
Concerns me now : since, if I know this 
not, 
Though I should know the sources of 
the sun, 
Or what within the hot heart of the earth 
Lulls the soft spirit of the fire, although 
The mandate of the thunder I sliould 
know. 
To me my knowledge would he nothing 
worth. 

What message, or what messenger to 
man ? 
Whereby shall revelation reach the 
soul? 
For who, by searching, finds out God ? 
How can 
My utmost steps, unguided, gain the 
..goal 
Of necessary knowledge ? It is clear 
I cannot reach the gates of heaven, 

and knock 
And enter : though I stood upon the 
rock 
Like Moses, God must speak ere I can 
hear, 

And touch me ere I feel him. He must 
come 
To me (I cannot join Him in the cloud). 
Stand at the dim doors of my mortal 
home ; 
Lift the low latch of life ; and enter, 
bowed 
Unto this earthly roof ; and sit within 
The circle of the senses ; at the hearth 
Of the affections ; be my guest on earth, 
Loving my love, and sorrowing in my 
sin. 

Since, though I stripped Divinity, in 
thought. 
From passion, which is personality, 
My God would still be human : though 
I sought 
In the bird's wing or in the insect's 
eye. 
Rather than in this broken heart of mine, 
His presence, human still : human 

would be 
All human thought conceives. Hu- 
manity, 
Being less human, is not more divine. 



The soul, then, cannot stipulate or refuse 
The fashion of the heavenly embassy. 
Since God is here the speaker. He must 
choose 
The words He wills. Already I descry 
That God and man are one, divided here. 
Yet reconcilable. One doubt survives. 
There is a dread condition to men's 
lives : 
We die : and, from its death, it would 
appear 

Our nature is not one with the divine. 
Not so. The Man- God dies ; and by 
his death 
Doth with his own immortal life combine 
The spirit pining in this mortal breath. 
Who from himself himself did alienate 
That he, returning to himself, might 

pave 
A pathway hence, to heaven from the 
grave. 
For man to follow — through the heav- 
enly gate. 

Wert thou, my Christ, not ignorant of 
grief? 
A man of sorrows? Notfor sorrow's sake 
(Lord, I believe : help thou mineunbelief !) 
Beneath the thorns did thy pure fore- 
head ache : 
But that in sorrow only, unto sorrow. 
Can comfort come ; in manhood only, 

man 
Perceive man's destiny. In Nature's 
plan 
Our path is over Midnight to To-morrow. 

And so the Prince of Life, in dying, gave 

Undying life to mortals. Once he 

stood 

Among his fellows, on this side the grave, 

A man, perceptible to flesh and blood : 

Now, taken from our sight, he dwells no 

less 

Within our mortal memory and 

thought ; 
The mystery of all he was, and wrought, 
Is made a part of general consciousness. 

And in this consciousness I reach repose. 
Spent with the howling main and 
desert sand 
Almost too faint to pluck the unfading 
rose 
Of peace, that bows its beauty to my 
hand. 



PALINGENESIS. 



257 



Here Reason fails, and leaves me ; my 
pale guide 
Across the wilderness — by a stern 

command, 
Shut out, like Moses, from the Prom- 
ist Land. 
Touching its own achievement, it hath 
died. 

Ah yet ! I have but wrung the victory 
From Thought ! Not passionless will 
be my path. 
Yet on my life's pale forehead I can see 
The flush of squandered tires. Passion 
hath 
Yet, in the purpose of my days, its place. 
But changed in aspect : turned unto 

the East, 
Whence grgvvs the dayspring from on 
high, at least 
A finer fervor trembles on its face. 



THE SOUL'S SCIENCE. 

Can History prove the truth which hath 
Its record in the silent soul ? 

Or Mathematics mete the path 
Whereby the spirit seeks its goal ? 

Can Love of aught but Love inherit 
The blessing which is born of Love ? 

The spirit knoweth of the spirit : 
The soul alone the soul can prove. 

The eye to see : the ear to hear : 
The working hand to help the will : 

To every sense his separate sphere : 
And unto each his several skilL 

The ear to sight, the eye to sound, 
Is callous : unto each is given 

His lorddom in his proper bound. 

The soul, the soul to find out heaven ! 

There is a glory veiled to sight ; 

A voice which never ear hath heard ; 
There is a law no hand can write, 

Yet stronger than the written word. 

And hast thou tidings for my soul, 
teacher ? to my soul intrust 

Alone the purport of thy scroll : 
Or vex me not with learned dust, 
17 



A PSALM OF CONFESSION. 

Full soon doth Sorrow make her cove- 
nant 
With Life ; and leave her shadow in 
the door : 
And all those future days, for which we 
pant. 
Do come in mourning for the days of 
yore. 
Still through the world gleams Memory 
seeking Love, 
Pale as the torch which grieving Ceres 

bore. 
Seeking Proserpina, on that dark shore 
Where only phantoms through the twi- 
light move. 

The more we change, the more is all the 
same, 
Our last grief was a tale of other years 
Quite outworn, till to our own hearts it 
came. 
Wishes are pilgrims to the Vale of 
Tears. 
Our brightest joys are but as airy shapes 
Of cloud, that fade on evening's glim- 
mering slope ; 
And disappointment hawks the hover- 
ing hope 
Forever pecking at the painted grapes. 

Why can we not one moment pause, 
and cherish 
Love, though love turn to tears ? or 
for hope's sake 
Bless hope, albeit the thing we hope may 
perish ? 
For happiness is not in what we 
take, 
But what we give. What matter though 
the thing 
We cling to most should fail us ? 

dust to dust, 
It is the feeling for the thing, — the 
trust 
In beauty somewhere, to which souls 
should cling. 

My youth has failed, if failure lies in 
aught 
The warm heart dreams, or which the 
working^ hand 
Is set to do. I have failed in aidless 
thought. 
And steadfast purpose, and in self- 
command. 



258 



THE WANDEEER. 



I have failed in hope, in health, in love : 
failed in the word. 
And in the deed too I have failed. 
[ Ah yet, 

Albeit with eyes from recent weepings 
wet, 
Sing thou, my Soul, thy psalm unto the 
Lord ! 

The hm-then of the desert and the 
sea ! 
The hurthen of the vision in the vale ! 
My threshing-floor, my threshing-floor ! 
ah me. 
Thy wind hath strewn my corn, and 
spoiled the flail ! 
The burthen of Dumah and of Dedanim ! 
What of the night, watchman, of 

the night ? 
The glory of Kedar faileth : and the 
might 
Of mighty men is minished and dim. 

The morning cometh, and the night, he 
cries. 
The watchman cries the morning, too, 
is nigher. 
And, if ye would inquire, lift up your 
eyes, 
Inquire of the Lord, return, inquire ! 
I stand upon the watchtower all day 
long : 
And all the night long I am set m 

ward. 
Is it thy feet upon the mountains. 
Lord? 
I sing against the darkness : hear my 
song ! 

The majesty of Kedar hath been spoiled : 
Bound are the arrows : broken is the 
bow. 
I come before the Lord with garments 
soiled. 
The ashes of my life are on my brow. 
Take thou thy harp, and go about the 
city. 
O daughter of Desire, with garments 

torn: 
Sing many songs, make melody, and 
mourn, 
That thou may'st be remembered unto 
pity. 

Just, awful God ! here at thy feet I lay 
My life's most precious ofi"ering : 
dearly bought, 



Thou knowest with what toil by night- 
and day : 
Thou knowest the pain, the passion, 
and the thought. 
I bring thee my youth's failure. 1 have 
spent 
My youth upon it. All I have is here. 
"Were it worth all it is not, price more 
dear 
Could 1 have paid for its accomplishment ? 

Yet it is much. If I could say to thee, 
"Acquit me. Judge ; for I am thus, 
and thus ; 
And have achieved — even so much," 
— should I be 
Thus wholly fearless and impetuous 
To rush into thy presence ? I might weigh 
The little done against the undone 

much : 
My merit with thy mercy : and, as 
such, 
Haggle with pardon for a price to pay. 

But now the fulness of its failure makes 
My spirit fearless ; and despair grows 
bold. 
My brow, beneath its sad self-knowledge, 
aches. 
Life's presence passes Thine a thou, 
sand-fold 
In contemplated terror. Can I lose 
Aught by that desperate temerity 
Which leaves no choice but to surreu' 
der Thee 
My life Avithout condition ? Could I 
choose 

A stipulated sentence, I might ask 
For ceded dalliance to some cherisht 
vice : 
Or half- remission of some desperate task 
Now, all I have is hateful. What is 
the price ? 
Speak, Lord ! I hear the Fiend's handj 
at the door. 
Hell's slavery or heaven's service is it 

the choice ? 
How can I palter with the terms ? O 
voice. 

Whence do I hear thee ... " Go : and 
sin no more " ? 

No more, no more ? But I have kisi , 
dead white 
The cheek of Vice. No more the| 
harlot hides 



PALINGENESIS. 



259 



Her loathsomeness of lineament from my 
sight. 
No more within my bosom there abides 
Her poisoned perfume. O, the witch's 
mice 
Have eat her scarlet robe and diaper, 
And she fares naked ! Part from her 
— from her ? 
[s this the price, Lord, is this the 
price ? 

iTet, though her web be broken, bonds, 
I know, 
Slow custom frames in the strong forge 
of time, 
SV^hich outlast love, and will not wear 
with woe, 
Nor break beneath the cognizance of 
crime, • 
rhe witch goes bare. But he, — the 
father fiend. 
That roams the unthrifty furrows of 

my days. 
Yet walks the field of life ; and, 
where he strays, 
rhe husbandry of heaven for hell is 
gleaned. 

Lulls are there in man's life which are 
not peace. 
Tumultswhich are not triumphs. Do 
I take 
rhe pause of passion for the fiend's de- 
cease ? 
This frost of grief hath numbed the 
drowsing snake ; 
SVhich yet may wake, and sting me in 
the heat 
Of new emotions. What shall bar 

the door 
Against the old familiar, that of yore 
Dame without call, and sat within my 
seat? 

When evening brings its dim grim hour 
again, 
And hell lets loose its dusky brood 
awhile, 
Shall I not find him in the darkness then ? 
The same subservient and yet insolent 
smile ? 
rhe same indifferent ignominious face ? 
The same old sense of household hor- 
" ror, come 
Like a tame creature, back into its 
home ? 
Meeting me, haply, in my wonted place, 



"With the loathed freedom of an unloved 
mate, 
Or crouching on my pillow as of old ? 
Knowing 1 hate him, impotent in hate ! 
Therefore more suljtle, strenuous, and 
bold. 
Thus ancient habit will usurp young will. 
And each new effort rivet the old 

thrall. 
No matter ! those who climb must 
count to fall, 
But each new fall will prove them climb- 
ing still. 

wretched man ! the body of this death 
Which, groaning in the spirit, I yet 
bear 
On to the end (so that I breathe the breath 
Of its corruption, even though breath- 
ing prayer). 
What shall take from me ? Must I drag 
forever 
The cold corpse of the life which I 

have killed 
But cannot bury ? Must my heart be 
filled 
With the dry dust of every dead en- 
deavor ? 

For often, at the mid of the long night, 
Some devil enters into the dead clay. 
And gives it life unnatural in my sight. 
The dead man rises up ; and roams 
away, 
Back to the mouldered mansions of the 
Past: 
And lights a lurid revel in the halls 
Of vacant years ; and lifts his voice, 
and calls. 
Till troops of phantoms gather round 
him fast. 

Frail gold-haired corpses, in whose eyes 
there lives 
A strange regret too wild to let them 
rest : 
Crowds of pale maidens, who were never 
wives 
And infants that all died upon the 
breast 
That suckled them. And these make 
revelry 
Mingled with wailing all the midnight 

through, 
Till the sad day doth with stern light 
renew 
The toiling land, and the complaining sea. 



260 



THE WANDEKER. 



Full well I knowtliat in this world of ours 
The dreadful Commonplace succeeds 
all change ; 
We catch at times a gleam of flying powers 
That pass in storm some windy moun- 
tain range : 
But, while we gaze, the cloud returns 
o'er all. 
And each, to guide him up the devious 

height, 
Must take, and bless, whatever earthly 
light 
From household hearths, or shepherd 
fires, may fall. 

This wave, that groans and writhes upon 
the beach, 
To-morrow will submit itself to calm ; 
That wind that rushes, moaning, out of 
reach. 
Will die anon beneath some breathless 
palm ; 
These tears, these sighs, these motions 
of the soul. 
This inexpressible pining of the mind. 
The stern indifferent laws of life shall 
bind. 
And fix forever in their old control. 

Behold this half-tamed universe of things ! 
That cannot break, nor wholly bear, 
its chain. 
Its heart by fits grows wild : it leaps, it 
springs ; 
Then the chain galls, and kennels it 
again. 
If man were formed with all his faculties 
For sorrow, I should sorrow for him 

less. 
Considering a life so brief, the stress 
Of its short passion I might well despise : 

But all man's faculties are for delight ; 
But all man's life is compassed with 
what seems 
Framed for enjoyment : but from all that 
sight 
And sense reveal a magic murmur 
streams 
Into man's heart, which says, or seems 
to say, 
" Be happy ! " . . . and the heart of 

man replies, 
" Leave happiness to brutes : I would 
be wise : 
Give me, not peace, but science, glory, 
art." 



Therefore, age, sickness, and mortality > 
Are but the lightest portion of his pain :• 
Therefore, shut out from joy, incessantly 
Death linds him toiling at a task that's 
vain. 
I weep the want of all he pines to have : 
I weep the loss of all he leaves be- 
hind : — 
Contentment, and repose, and peace 
of mind. 
Pawned for the purchase of a little grave : 

I weep the hundred centuries of time ; 
I weep the millions that have squan- 
dered them 
In error, doubt, anxiety, and crime. 
Here, where the free birds sing from 
leaf and stem : 
I weep . . . but what are tears ? What 
I deplore 
I knew not, half a himdred years ago ; 
And half a hundred years from hence, 
I know 
That what I weep for I shall know no 
more. 

The spirit of that wide and leafless wind 
That wanders o'er the uncompanioned 
sea. 
Searching for what it never seems to find. 
Stirred in my hair, and moved my 
heart in me. 
To follow it, far over land and main : 
And everywhere over this earth's 

scarred face 
The footsteps of a God I seemed to 
trace ; 
But everywhere steps of a God in pain. 

If, haply, he that made this heart of 
mine. 
Himself in sorrow walked the world 
erewhile. 
What then am I, to marvel or repine 

That I go mourning ever in the smile 
Of universal nature, searching ever 
The phantom of a joy which here I 

miss ? 
My heart inhabits other worlds than 
this. 
Therefore my search is here a vain en- 
deavor. 

Methought, ... (it was the midnight o^ 
my soul. 
Dead midnight) that I stood on Cal'j 
vary : 



PALINGENESIS. 



261 



I found the cross, but not tlie Christ. 
The whole 
Of heaven was dark : and I went bit- 
terly 
Weeping, because I found him not. 
Methought, . . . 
(It was the twilight of the dawn and 

mist) 
I stood before the sepulchre of Christ : 
The sepulchre was vacant, void of aught 

Saving the cere-clothes of the grave, 
which were 
Upf olden straight and empty : bitterly 
Weeping I stood, because not even there 
I found him. Then a voice spake 
unto me, 
" Whom seekest thou ? Why is thy 
heartr dismayed ? 
Jesus of Nazareth, he is not here : 
Behold, the Lord is risen. Be of 
cheer : 
Approach, behold the place where he 
was laid." 

And while he spake, the sunrise smote 
the world. 
"Go forth, and tell thy brethren," 
spake the voice ; 
"The Lord is risen." Suddenly un- 
furled. 
The whole unclouded Orient did re- 
joice 
In glory. Wherefore should I mourn 
that here 
My heart feels vacant of what most it 

needs ? 
Christ is arisen ! . . . the cere-clothes 
and the weeds 
That wrapped him lying in this sepul- 
chre 

Of earth, he hath abandoned ; being 
gone 
Back into heaven, where we too must 
turn 
Our gaze to find him. Pour, risen 
Sun 
Of Eighteousness, the light for which 
I yearn 
Upon the darkness of this mortal hour. 
This tract of night in which I walk 

forlorn : 
Behold the night is now far spent. 
The morn 
Breaks, breaking from afar through a 
night shower. 



REQUIESCAT. 

I SOUGHT to build a deathless monument 
To my dead love. Therein I meant 
to place 
All precious things, and rare : as Nature 
blent 
All single sweetnesses in one sweet 
face. 
I could not build it worthy her mute 
merit, 
Nor worthy her white brows and holy 
eyes. 
Nor worthy of her perfect and pure spirit. 

Nor of my own immortal memories. 
But, as some rapt artificer of old, 

To enshrine the ashes of a virgin saint. 
Might scheme to work with ivory, and 
fine gold. 
And carven gems, and legended and 
quaint 
Seraphic heraldries ; searching far lands. 
Orient and Occident, for all things rare, 
To consecrate the toil of reverent hands. 
And make his labor, like her virtue, 
fair ; 
Knowing no beauty beautiful as she. 

And all his labor void, but to beguile 
A sacred sorrow ; so I worked. Ah, see 
Here are the fragments of my shattered 
pile f 
I keep them, and the flowers that sprang 
between 
Their broken workmanship — the flow- 
ers and weeds ! 
Sleep soft among the violets, my 
Queen, — 
Lie calm among my ruined thoughts 
and deeds. 



EPILOGUE. 

PART I. 

Change without term, and strife without 
result. 
Persons that pass, and shadows that 
remain. 
One strange, impenetrable, and occult 
Suggestion of a hope, that 's hoped in 
vain, 
Behold the world man reigns in ! His 
delight 
Deceives ; his power fatigues ; his 
strength is brief; 



262 



THE WANDERER. 



Even his religion presupposes grief, 
His morning is not certain of the night. 

I have beheld, without regret, the trunk, 
Which propped three hundred sum- 
mers on its boughs, 
Which housed, of old, the merry bird, 
and drunk 
The divine dews of air, and gave ca- 
rouse 
To the free winds of heaven, lie over- 
thrown 
Amidst the trees which its own fruitage 

bore. 
Its promise is fulfilled. It is no more. 
But it hath been. Its destiny is done. 

But the wild ash, that springs above the 
marsh ! 
Strong and superb it rises o'er the wild. 
Vain energy of being ! For the harsh 
And fetid ooze already hath defiled 
The roots whose sap it lives by. Heaven 
doth give 
No blessing to its boughs. The humid 

wind 
Rots them. The vapors warp them. 
All declined. 
Its life hath ceased, ere it hath ceased to 
live. 

Child of the waste, and nursling of the 
pest ! 
A kindred fate hath watched and 
wept thine own. 
Thine epitaph is written in my breast. 
Years change. Day treads out day. 
For me alone 
No change is nurst within the brooding 
bud. 
Satiety I have not known, and yet, 
I wither in the void of life, and fret 
A futile time, with an unpeaceful blood. 

The days are all too long, the nights too 
fair. 
And too much redness satiates the rose. 
blissful season ! blest and balmy air ! 
Waves ! moonlight ! silence ! years of 
lost repose ! 
Bowers and shades that echoed to the 
tread 
Of young Romance ! birds that, from 

woodland bars. 
Sang, serenading forth the timid stars ! 
Youth ! beauty ! passion ! whither are 
ye fled? 



I wait, and long have waited, and yet wait 
The coming of the footsteps which ye 
told 
My heart to watch for. Yet the hour 
is late, 
And ye have left me. Did they lie, of 
old. 
Your thousand voices prophesying bliss ? 
That troubled all the current of a fate 
Which else might have been peaceful ! 
I await 
The thing I have not found, yet would 
not miss. 

To face out childhood, and grow up to 
man. 
To make a noise, and question all one 
sees, 
The astral orbit of a world to span. 
And, after a few days, to take one's 
ease 
Under the graveyard grasses, — this, my 
friend, 
Appears to me a thing too strange but 

what 
I wish to know its meaning, I would 
not 
Depart before I have perceived the end. 

And I would know what, here below the 
sun. 
He is, and what his place, that being 
which seems 
The end of all means, yet the means of 
none ; 
Who searches and combines, aspires 
and dreams ; 
Seeking new things with ever the same 
hope. 
Seeking new hopes in ever the same 

thing ; 
A king without the powers of a king, 
A beggar with a kingdom in his scope ; 

Who only sees in what he hath attained 
The means whereby he may attain to 
more ; 
Who only finds in that which he hath 
gained 
The want of what he did not want be- 
fore ; 
Whom weakness strengthens ; who is 
soothed by strife ; 
Who seeks new joys to prize the ab- 
sent most ; 
Still from illusion to illusion tost,' 
Himself the great illusion of his life ! 



PALINGENESIS. 



263 



Wliy is it, all deep emotion makes lis sigh 
To quit this world ? What better 
thing tlian death 
Can follow after rapture ? ' ' Let us die ! ' ' 
This is the last wish on the lover's 
breath. 
If thou wouldst live, content thee. To 
enjoy 
Is to begin to perish. What is bliss, 
But transit to some other state from 
this ? 
That which we live for must our life 
destroy. 

Hast thou not ever longed for death ? If 
not. 
Not yet thy life's experience is at- 
tained. 
But if thy daj^ be favored, if thy lot 
Be easy, if hope's summit thou hast 
gained, 
Die ! Death is the sole future left to 
thee. 
The knowledge of this life is bound, 

for each, 
By his own powers. Death lies be- 
tween our reach 
And all which, living, we have lived to 
be. 

Death is no evil, since it comes to' all. 

For evil is the exception, not the law. 

What is it in the tempest that doth call 

Our spirits down its pathways ? or the 

awe 

Of that abyss and solitude beneath 

High mountain passes, which doth 

aye attract 
Such strange desire ? or in the cata- 
ract ? 
The sea ? It is the sentiment of death. 

If life no more than a mere seeming be, 

Away with the imposture ! If it tend 
To nothing, and to have lived seemingly 

Prove to be vain and futile in the end. 
Then let us die, that we may really live. 

Or cease to feign to live. Let us 
possess 

Lasting delight, or lasting quietness. 
What life desires, death, only death, can 
give. 

Where are the violets of vanisht years ? 
The sunsets Rachel watched by La- 
ban's well ? 



Where is Fidele's face ? where Juliet's 
tears ? 
There comes no answer. There is 
none to tell 
What we go questioning, till our mouths 
are stopt 
By a clod of earth. Ask of the plan- 
gent sea, 
The wild wind wailing through the 
leafless tree. 
Ask of the meteor from the midnight 
dropt ! 

Come, Death, and bring the beauty back 
to all ! 
I do not seek thee, but I will not shun. 
And let thy coming be at even-fall. 
Thy pathway through the setting of 
the sun. 
And let us go together, I with thee, 
What time the lamps in Eden bowers 

are lit. 
And Melancholy, all alone, doth sit 
By the wide marge of some neglected sea. 



PART 11. 

One hour of English twilight once again ! 

Lo ! in the rosy regions of the dew 
The confines of the world begin to wane, 
And Hesper doth his trembling lamp 
renew. 
Now is the inauguration of the night ! 
Nature's release to wearied earth and 

skies ! 
Sweet truce of Care ! Labor's brief 
armistice ! 
Best, loveliest interlude of dark and 
light ! 

The rookery, babbling in the sunken 
wood ; 
The watchdog, barking from the dis- 
tant farm. 
The dim light fading from the horned 
flood, 
That winds the woodland in its silver 
arm ; 
The massed and immemorial oaks, whose 
leaves 
Are husht in yonder heathy dells be- 
low ; 
The fragrance of the meadows that I 
know ; 
The bat, that now his wavering circle 
weaves 



264 



THE WANDERER. 



Around these antique towers, and case- 
ments deep 
That glimmer, through the ivy and 
the rose. 
To the faint moon, which doth begin to 
creep 
Out of the inmost heart o' the heavens' 
repose, 
To wander, all night long, without a 
sound. 
Above the fields my feet oft wandered 

once ; 
The larches tall and dark, which do 
ensconce 
The little churchyard, in whose hallowed 
ground 

Sleep half the simple friends my child- 
hood knew : 
All, all the sounds and sights of this 
blest hour, 
Sinking within my heart of hearts, like 
dew, 
Revive that so long parcht and droop- 
ing flower 
Of youth, the world's hot breath for 
many years 
Hath burned and withered ; till once 

more, once more. 
The revelation and the dream of yore 
Return to solace these sad eyes with 
tears ! 

Where now, alone, a solitary man, 
I pace once more the pathways of my 
home, 
Light-hearted, and together, once we 
ran, 
I, and the infant guide that used to 
roam 
With me, the meads and meadow-banks 
among. 
At dusk and dawn. How light those 

little feet 
Danced through the dancing grass 
and waving wheat. 
Where'er, far off, we heard the cuckoo's 
song ! 

I know now, little Ella, what the flow- 
ers 
Said to you then, to make your cheek 
so pale ; 
And why the blackbird in our laurel 
bowers 
Spake to you, only ; and the poor, 
pink snail 



Feared less joi\t steps than those of the 
May-shower. 
It was not strange these creatures 

loved you so. 
And told you all. 'T was not so long 
ago 
You were, yourself, a bird, or else a 
flower. 

And, little Ella, you were pale, because 
So soon you were to die. I know that 
now. 
And why there ever seemed a sort of 
gauze 
Over your deep blue eyes, and sad 
young brow. 
You were too good to grow up, Ella, 
you. 
And be a woman such as I have 

known ! 
And so upon your heart they put a 
stone. 
And left you, dear, amongst the flowers 
and dew. 

God's will is good. He knew what 
would be best. 
I will not weep thee, darling, any 
more ; 
I have not wept thee ; though my heart, 
opprest 
With many memories, for thy sake is 
sore. 
God's will is good, and great His wisdom 
is. 
Thou wast a little star, and thou didst 

shine 
Upon my cradle ; but thou wast not 
mine. 
Thou wast not mine, my darling ; thou 
art His. 

My morning star ! twin sister of my 
soul ! 
My little elfin friend from Fairy- Land ! 
Whose memory is yet innocent of the 
whole 
Of that which makes me doubly need 
thy hand. 
Thy little guiding hand so soon with- 
drawn ! 
Here where I find so little like to 

thee. 
For thou wert as the breath of dawn j 
to me. 

Starry, and pure, and brief as is the| 
dawn. 



PALINGENESIS. 



265 



Thy knight was I, and thou my Fairy 
Queen. 
('T was in the days of love and chiv- 
alry !) 
And thou didst hide thee in a bower of 
green. 
But thou so well hast hidden thee, 
that I 
Have never found thee since. And thou 
didst set 
Many a task, and quest, and high 

emprise, 
Ere I should win my guerdon from 
thine eyes, 
So many, and so many, that not yet 

My tasks are ended or my wanderings 
o'er. 
But somft day thou wilt send across 
the main 
A magic bark, and I shall quit this 
shore 
Of care, and find thee, in thy bower, 
again ; 
And thou wilt say, "My brother, hast 
thou found 
Our home, at last ? " . . . Whilst I, in 

answer. Sweet, 
Shall heap my life's last booty at thy 
feet. 
And bare my breast with many a bleed- 
ing wound. 

The spoils of time ! the trophies of the 
world ! 
The keys of conquered towns, and 
captived kings ; 
And many a broken sword, and banner 
furled ; 
The heads of giants, and swart Soldan's 
rings ; 
And many a maiden's scarf ; and many 
a wand 
Of baffled wizard ; many an amulet ; 
And many a shield, with mine own 
heart's blood wet ; 
And jewels, dear, from many a distant 
land! 

God's will is good. He knew what 
would be best. 
I thought last year to pass away from 
life. 
I thought my toils were ended, and my 
quest 
Completed, and my part in this world's 
strife 



Accomplisht. And, behold ! about me 
now 
There rest the gloom, the glory, and 

the awe 
Of a new martyrdom, no dreams fore- 
saw ; 
And the thorn-crown hath blossomed on 
my brow. 

A martyi'dom, but with a martyr's joy ! 

A hope I never hoped for ! and a sense 
That nothing henceforth ever can de- 
stroy : — 

"Within my breast the serene confidence 
Of mercy in the misery of things ; 

Of meaning in the mystery of all ; 

Of blessing in whatever may befall ; 
Of rest predestined to all wanderings. 

How sweet, with thee, my sister, to renew. 
In lands of light, the search for those 
bright birds 
Of plumage so ethereal in its hue. 
And music sweeter than all mortal 
words, 
"Which some good angel to our childhood 
sent 
With messages from Paradisal flowers. 
So lately left, the scent of Eden bowers 
Yet lingered in our hair, where'er we 
went ! 

Now, they are all fled by, this many a 
year, 
Adown the viewless valleys of the wind. 
And nevermore will cross this hemisphere. 
Those birds of passage ! Never shall 
I find, 
Dropt from the flight, you followed, dear, 
so far 
That you will never come again, I know, 
One plumelet on the paths by which 
I go, 
Missing thy light there, my morning 
star! 

Soft, over all, doth ancient twilight cast 
Her dim gray robe, vague as futurity, 
And sad and hoary as the ghostly past, 

Till earth assumes invisibility. 
I hear the night-bird's note, wherewith 
she starts 
The bee within the blossom from his 

dream. 
A light, like hope, from yonder pane 
doth beam. 
And now, like hope, it silently departs. 



266 



THE WANDERER. 



Hush ! from tlie clock within yon dark 
church spire, 
Another hour broke, clanging, out of 
time, 
And passed me, throbbing like my own 
desire. 
Into the seven-fold heavens. And now, 
the chime 
Over the vale, the woodland, and the 
river, 
More faint, more far, a quivering echo, 

strays 
From that small twelve-houred circle 
of our days. 
And spreads, and spreads, to the great 
round Forever. 

Pensive, the sombre ivied porch I pass. 
Through the dark hall, the sound of 
my own feet 
Pursues me, like the ghost of what I 
was. 
Into this silent chamber, where I 
meet 
From wall to wall the fathers of my 
race ; 
The pictures of the past from wall to 

wall ; 
Wandering o'er which, my wistful 
glances fall. 
To sink, at last, on little Ella's face. 

This is my home. And hither I re- 
turn. 
After much wandering in the ways of 
men, 
Wearj' but not outworn. Here, with 
her urn. 
Shall Memory come, and be my deni- 
zen. 
And blue-eyed Hope shall through the 
window look. 
And lean her fair child's face into the 

room, 
What time the hawthorn buds anew, 
and bloom 
The bright forget-me-nots beside the 
brook. 

Father of all which is, or yet may 
be, 
Ere to the pillow which my childhood 
prest 
This nij^ht restores my troubled brows, 
by Thee 
May this, the last prayer I have 
learned, be blest ! 



Grant me to live that I may need from 
life 
No more than life hath given me, and 

to die 
That I may give to death no mora 
than I 
Have long abandoned. And, if toil and 
strife 

Yet in the portion of my days must be, 
Firm be my faith, and quiet be my 
heart ! 
That so my work may with my will agree, 
And strength be mine to calmly fill my 
part 
In Nature's purpose, questioning not the 
end. 
For love is more than raiment or than 

food. 
Shall I not take the evil with the good ? 
Blessed to me be all which thou dost 
send! 

Nor blest the least, recalling what hath 
been. 
The knowledge of the evil I have known 
Without me, and within me. Since, to 
lean 
Upon a strength far mightier than my 
own 
Such knowledge brought me. In whose 
strength I stand. 
Firmly upheld, even though, in ruin 

hurled, 
The fixed foundations of this rolling 
world 
Should topple at the waving of Thy hand. 



PART III. 

Hail thou ! sole Muse that, in an age of 
toil. 
Of all the old Uranian sisterhood, 
Art left to light us o'er the furrowed soil 
Of this laborious star ! Muse, unsub- 
dued 
By that strong hand which hath in ruin 
razed 
The temples of dread Jove ! Muse 

most divine. 
Albeit but ill by these pale lips of mine. 
In days degenerate, first named and 
praised ! 

Now the high aiiy kingdoms of the day 
Hyperion holds not. The disloyal seas 



PALINGENESIS. 



267 



Have broken from Poseidon's purple 

sway. 

Through Heaven's harmonious golden 

palaces 

No more the silver-sandalled messengers 

Slide to sweet airs. Upon Olympus' 

brow 
The gods' great citadel is vacant now. 
And not a lute to Love in Lesbos stirs. 

But thou wert born not on the Forked Hill, 
Nor fed from Hybla's hives by Attic 
bees, 
Nor on the honey Cretan oaks distil. 
Or once distilled, when gods had homes 
in trees. 
And young Apollo knew thee not. Yet 
thou 
With Ceres wast, when the pale mother 

trod 
The gloomy pathway to the nether god, 
And spake with that dim Power which 
dwells below 

The surface of whatever, where he wends, 
The circling sun illumineth. And thou 
Wast aye a friend to man. Of all his 
friends, 
Perchance the friend most needed : 
needed now 
Yet more than ever ; in a complex age 
Which changes while we gaze at it : 

from heaven 
Seeking a sign, and finding no sign 
given, 
And questioning Life's worn book at 
every page. 

Nor ever yet, was song, untaught by 
thee, 
Worthy to live immortally with man. 
Wherefore, divine Experience, bend on 
me 
Thy deep and searching eyes. Since 
life began. 
Meek at thy mighty knees, though oft 
reproved, 
I have sat, spelling out slow time with 

tears. 
Where down the riddling alphabet of 
years 
Thy guiding finger o'er the horn-book 
moved. 

And I have put together many names : 
Sorrow, and Joy, and Hope, and Mem- 
ory, 



And Love, and Anger ; as an infant 
frames 
The initials of a language wherein he 
In manhood must with men communi- 
cate. 
And oft, the words were hard to un- 
derstand. 
Harder to utter ; still the solemn hand 
Would pause, and point, and wait, and 
move, and wait ; 

Till words grew into language. Lan- 
guage grew 
To utterance. Utterance into music 
passed. 
I sang of all I learned, and all 1 knew. 
And, looking upward in thy face, at 
last, 
Beheld it flusht, as when a mother hears 
Her infant feebly singing his first 

hymn. 
And dreams she sees, albeit unseen of 
him. 
Some radiant listener lured from other 
spheres. 

Such songs have been my solace many a 
while 
And oft, when other solace I had none, 
From grief which lay heart-broken on a 
smile. 
And joy that glittered like a winter 
sun. 
And froze, and fevered : from the great 
man's scorn, 
The mean man's envy ; friends' un- 
friendliness ; 
Love's want of human kindness, and 
the stress 
Of nights that hoped for nothing from 
the morn. 

From these, and worse than these, did 
song unbar 
A refuge through the ivory gate of 
dreams. 
Wherein my spirit grew familiar 

With spirits that glide by spiritual 
streams ; 
Song hath, for me, unsealed the genii 
sleeping 
Under mid seas, and lured out of their 

lair 
Beings with wondering eyes, and won- 
drous hair. 
Tame to my feet at twilight softly 
creeping. 



268 



THE WANDERER. 



And song hath been my cymbal in the 
hours 
Of triumph ; when behind me, far 
away, 
Lay Egypt, with its plagues ; and, by 
strange powers, 
Not mine, upheld, life's heaped ocean 
lay 
On either side a passage for my soul. 
A passage to the Land of Promise ! 

trod 
By giants, where the chosen race of 
God 
Shall find, at last, its long predestined 
goal. 

The breath which stirred these songs a 
little while 
Has fleeted by ; and, with it, fleeted 
too 
The days I sought, thus singing, to be- 
guile 
Of thouglits that spring like weeds, 
which will creep through 
The blank interstices of ruined fanes. 
Where Youth, adoriug, sacrificed — 

its heart, 
To gods forever fallen. 

Now, we part, 
My songs and I. We part, and what 
remains ? 

Perchance an echo, and perchance no 
more, 
Harp of my heart, from thy brief mu- 
sic dwells 
In hearts, unknown, afar : as the wide 
shore 
Retains within its hundred hollow 
shells 
The voices of the spirits of the foam, 
Which murnaur in the language of the 

deeps, 
Though haply far away, to one who 
keeps 
Such ocean wealth to grace an inland 
home. 

Within these cells of song, how frail so- 
e'er, 
The va st and wandering tides of human 
life 
Have murmured once ; and left, in pass- 
ing, there, 
Faint echoes of the tumult and the 
strife 
Of the great ocean of humanity. 



Fairies have danced within these hol- 
low caves. 

And Memory mused above the moonlit 
waves. 
And Youth, the lover, here hath lingered 

by- 

I sung of life, as life would have me sing. 
Of falsehood, and of evil, and of wrong; 
For many a false, and many an evil 
thing, 
I found in life; and by my life my 
song 
Was shaped within me while I sung : I 
sung 
Of Good, for good is life's predestined 

end ; 
Of Sorrow, for I knew her as my friend ; 
Of Love, for by his hand my harp was 
strung.. 

I have not scrawled above the tomb of 
Youth 
Tliose lying epitaphs, which represent 
All virtues, and all excellence, save 
truth. 
'Twere easy, thus, to have been elo- 
quent, 
If I had held the fashion of the age 
Which loves to hear its sounding flat- 
tery 
Blown by all dusty winds from sky to 
sky, 
And find its praises blotting every page. 

And yet, the Poet and the Age are one. 
And if the age be flawed, howe'er 
minute, 
Deep through the poet's heart that rent 
doth run, 
And shakes and mars the music of his 
lute. 
It is not that his sympathy is less 

With all that lives and all that feels 

around him. 
But that so close a sympathy hath 
bound him 
To these, that he must utter their dis- 
tress. 

We build the bridge, and swing the 
wondrous wire. 
Bind with an iron hoop the rolling 
world ; 
Sport with the spirits of the ductile fire ; 
And leave our. spells upon the vapor 
furled ; 



PALINGENESIS. 



269 



And cry — Behold the progress of the 
time ! 
Yet are we tending in an unknown 

land, 
Whither, we neither ask nor under- 
stand, 
Far from the peace of our unvalued 
prime ! 

And Strength and Force, the fiends 
which minister 
To some new-risen Power beyond our 
span, 
On either hand, with hook and nail, 
confer 
To rivet the Promethean heart of man 
Under the ravening and relentless beak 
Of unappeasable Desire, which yet 
The very vitals of the age doth fret. 
The limbs are mighty, but the heart is 
weak. 

"Writhe on, Prometheus ! or whate'er 
thou art, 
Thou giant sufferer, groaning for a 
race 
Thou canst not save, for all thy bleeding 
heart ! 
Thy wail my harp hath wakened ; 
and my place 
Shall be beside thee ; arid my blessing be 
On all that makes me worthy yet to 

share 
Thy lonely martyrdom, and with thee 
wear 
That crown of anguish given to poets, 
and thee ! 

If to have wept, and wildly ; to have 
loved 
Till love grew torture ; to have grieved 
till grief 
Became a part of life ; if to have proved 
The want of all things ; if, to draw 
relief 
From poesy for passion, this avail, 
I lack no title to my crown. The sea 
Hath sent up nymphs for my society. 
The mountains have been moved to hear 
my wail. 

Nature and man were children long ago 

In glad simplicity of heart and speech. 

Now they are strangers to each other's 

woe ; 

And each hath language different from 

each. 



The simplest songs sound sweetest and 
most good. 
The simplest loves are the most loving 

ones. 
Happier were song's forefathers than 
their sons. 
And Homer sung as Byron never could. 

But Homer cannot come again : nor ever 

The quiet of the age in which he sung. 

This age is one of tumult and endeavor. 

And by a fevered hand its harps ai'e 

strung. 

And yet, 1 do not quarrel with the time ; 

Nor quarrel with the tumult of my 

heart. 
Which of the tumult of the age is 
part ; 
Because its very weakness is sublime. 

The passions are as winds on the wide sea 
Of human life ; which do impel the 
sails 
Of man's great enterprise, whate'er that 
be. 
The reckless helmsman, caught upon 
these gales, 
Under the roaring gulfs goes down 
aghast. 
The prudent pilot to the steadying 

breeze 
Sparely gives head ; and, over peril- 
ous seas. 
Drops anchor 'mid the Fortunate Isles, 
at last. 

We pray against the tempest and the 
strife, 
The storm, the whirlwind, and the 
troublous hour. 
Which vex the fretful element of ]ife. 
Me rather save, dread disposing 
Power, 
From those dead calms, that flat and 
hopeless lull. 
In which the dull sea rots around the 

bark, 
And nothing moves save the sure- 
creeping dark. 
That slowly settles o'er an idle hull. 

For in the storm, the tumult, and the stir 

That shakes the soul, man finds his 

power and place 

Among the elements. Deeps with deeps 

confer. 

And Nature's secret settles in her face. 



270 



THE WANDEEER. 



Let ocean to his inmost caves be stirred ; 
Let the wild light be smitten from the 

cloud. 
The decks may reel, the masts be 
snapt and bowed, 
But God hath sjDoken out, and man 
hath heard ! 

Farewell, you lost inhabitants of my 
mind, 
You fair ephemerals of faded hours ! 
Farewell, you lands of exile, whence 
each wind 
Of memory steals with fragrance over 
flowers ! 
Farewell, Cordelia ! Ella ! . . . But not so 
Farewell the memories of you which 

I have 
Till strangers shall be sitting on my 
grave 
And babbling of the dust which lies 
below. 

Blessed the man whose life, how sad 
soe'er, 
Hath felt the presence, and yet keeps 
the trace 
Of one pure woman ! With religious care 
"We close the doors, with reverent feet 
we pace 
The vacant chambers, where, of yore, a 
Queen 
One night hath rested. From my 

Past's pale walls 
Yet gleam the unfaded fair memorials 
Of her whose beauty there, awhile, hath 
been. 

She passed, into my youth, at its night- 
time. 
When low the lamplight, and the 
music husht. 
She passed and passed away. Some 
broken rhyme 
Scrawled on the panel or the pane : 
the crush t 
And faded rose she dropped : the page 
she turned 
And finished not : the ribbon or the 

knot 
That fluttered from her . . . Stranger, 
harm them not ! 
I keep these sacred relics undiscemed. 

Men's truths are often lies, and women's 
lies 
Often the setting of a truth most tender 



In an unconscious poesy. The child 
cries 
To clutch the star that lights its rosy 
splendor 
In airy Edens of the west afar. 

"Ah, folly!" sighs the father, o'er 

his book. 
"Millions of miles above thy foolish 
nook 
Of infantile desire, the Hesperus-star 

"Descends not, child, to twinkle on thy 
cot." 
Then readjusts his blind-wise specta- 
cles. 
While tears to sobs are changing, were 
it not 
The mother, with those tender sylla- 
bles 
Which even Dutch mothers can make 
musical too, 
Murmurs, " Sleep, sleep, my little one ! 

and I 
Will pluck thy star for thee, and by 
and by 
Lay it upon thy pillow bright with dew." 

And the child sleeps, and dreams of stars 
whose light 
Beams in his own bright eyes when he 
awakes. 
So sleep ! so dream ! If aught I read 
aright 
That star, poor babe, which o'er thy 
cradle shakes, 
Thy fate may fall, in after years, to be 
That other child that, like thee, loves 

the star. 

And, like thee, weeps to find it all so 
far, 
Feeling its force in his nativity : — 

That other infant, all as weak, as wild. 
As passionate, and as helpless, as thou 
art, 

Whom men will call a Poet (Poet, oi 

child. 

The star is still so distant from the 

heart !) 

If so, heaven grant that thou mayst find 

at last, 

Since such there are, some woman, 

whose sweet smile, 
Pitying, may thy fond fancy yet be- 
guile 
To dream the star, which thou hast 
sought, thou hast ! 



PALINGENESIS. 



271 



For men, if thou shouldst heed what 
they may say, 
Will break thy heart, or leave thee, 
like themselves 
No heart for breaking. Wherefore I do 
pray 
My book may lie upon no learned 
shelves, 
But that in some deep summer eve, per- 
chance, 
Some woman, melancholy-eyed, and 

pale. 
Whose heart, like mine, hath suffered, 
may this tale 
Eead by the soft light of her own romance. 

Go forth over the wide world, Song of 
mine ! 
As Noah s dove out of his bosom flew 
Over the desolate, vast, and wandering 
brine. 
Seek thou thy nest afar. Thy plaint 
renew 



From heart to heart, and on from land 
to land 
Fly boldly, till thou find that unknown 

friend 
Whose face, in dreams, above my own 
doth bend. 
Then tell that spirit what it will under- 
stand, 

Why men can tell to strangers all the 
tale 
From friends reserved. And tell that 
spirit, my Song, 
Wherefore I have not faltered to unveil 
The cryptic forms of error and of 
wrong. 
And say, I sufiered more than I re- 
corded. 
That each man's life is all men's lesson. 

Say, 
And let the world believe thee, as it 
may, 
Thy tale is true, however weakly worded. 



TANNHAUSER;^ 



OB, 



THE BATTLE OE THE BARDS. 



A portion of this poem was written by another hand. 



This is the Land, the happy valleys 

these, 
Broad breadths of plain, blue-veined by 

many a stream, 
Umbrageous hills, sweet glades, and for- 
ests fair. 
O'er which our good liege. Landgrave 

Herman, rules. 
This is Thuringia : yonder, on the heights. 
Is Wartburg, seat of our dear lord's abode, 
Famous through Christendom for many 

a feat 
Of deftest knights, chief stars of chivalry. 
At tourney in its courts ; nor more re- 
nowned 
For deeds of Prowess than exploits of 

Art, 
Achieved when, vocal in its Muses' hall. 
The minstrel-knights their glorious jousts 

renew. 
And for the laurel wage harmonious war. 
On this side spreads the Chase in wooded 

slopes 
And sweet acclivities ; and, all beyond. 
The open flats lie fruitful to the sun 
Full many a league ; till, dark against 

the sky, 
Bounding the limits of our lord's domain, 
The Hill of Horsel rears his horrid front. 
Woe to the man who wanders in the vast 
Of those unhallowed solitudes, if Sin, 
Quickening the lust of carnal appetite. 
Lurk secret in his heart : for all their 

caves 
Echo weird strains of magic, direful- 
sweet. 
That lap the wanton sense in blissful 

ease ; 
While through the ear a reptile music 
creeps, 



And, blandly-busy, round about the soul 
Weaves its fell web of sounds. The un- 
happy wight 
Thus captive made in soft and silken 

bands 
Of tangled harmony, is led away — 
Away adown the ever-darkening caves, 
Away from fairness and the face of God, 
Away into the mountain's mystic womb, 
To where, reclining on her impious couch 
All the fair length of her lascivious limbs, 
Languid in light from roseate tapers flung, 
Incensed with perfumes, tended on by 

fays, 
The lustful Queen, waiting damnation, 

holds 
Her bestial revels. The Queen of Beauty 

once, 
A goddess called and worshipped in the 

days 
When men their own infirmities adored. 
Deeming divine who in themselves 

summed up 
The full-blown passions of humanity. 
Large fame and lavish service had she 

then, 
Venus ycleped, of all the Oljrmpian crew 
Least continent of Spirits and most fair. 
So reaped she honor of unwistful men, 
Koman, or Greek, or dwellers on the 

plains 
Of Egypt, or the isles to utmost Ind ; 
Till came the crack of that tremendous 

Doom 
That sent the false gods shivering from 

their seats. 
Shattered the superstitious «dome that 

bleared 
Heaven's face to man, and on the lurid 

world 



* The reader is solicited to adopt the German pronunciation of Tannhauser, by sounding it 
as if it were written, in English, " Tannhoiser." 



TANNHAUSER. 



273 



Let in effulgence of untainted light. 
As when, laid bare beneath the delver's 

toil 
On some huge bulk of buried masonry 
In hoar Assyria, suddenly revealed 
A chamber, gay with sculpture and the 

pomp 
Of pictured tracery on its glowing walls, 
No sooner breathes the wholesome heav- 
enly air 
Than fast its colored bravery fades, and 

fall 
Its ruined statues, crumbled from their 

crypts, 
And all its gauds grow dark at sight of 

day ; 
So darkened and to dustj' ruin fell 
The fleeting glories of a Pagan faith, 
Bared to Truth's influences bland, and 

smit 
Blind by the splendors of the Bethlehem 

Dawn. 
Then from their shattered temple in the 

minds 
Of men, and from their long familiar 

homes. 
Their altars, fanes, and shrines, the 

sumptuous seats 
Of their mendacious oracles, out-slunk 
The wantons of Olympus. Forth they 

fled. 
Forth from Dodona, Delos, and the 

depths 
Of wooded Ida ; from Athense forth, 
Cithseron, Paphos, Thebes, and all their 

groves 
Of oak or poplar, dismally to roam 
About the new-baptized earth ; exiled, 
.Bearing the curse, yet suffered for a 

space. 
By Heaven's clear sapience and inscru- 
table ken. 
To range the wide world, and assay their 

powers 
To unregenerate redeemed mankind : 
If haply they by shadows and by shows. 
Phantasmagoria, and illusions wrought 
Of sight or sound by sorcery, may draw 
Unwary men, or weak, into the nets 
Of Satan their great Captain. She re- 
nowned 
"The fairest," fleeing from her Cyprian 

isle. 
Swept to the northwards many a league, 

and lodged 
At length on Horsel, into whose dark 
womb 



She crept confounded. Thither soon she 

drew 
Lewd Spirits to herself, and there abides, 
Holding her devilish orgies ; and has 

power 
With siren voices crafty to compel 
Into her wanton home unhappy men 
Whose souls to sin are prone. The pure 

at heart 
Nathless may roam about her pestilent 

hill 
Untainted, proof against perfidious 

sounds 
Within whose ears an angel ever sings 
Good tidings of great joy. Nor even they. 
Whose hearts are gross, and who inflamed 

with lust 
Enter, entrapped by sorceries, to her cave. 
Are damned beyond redemption. For a 

while. 
Slaves of their bodies, in the sloughs of 

Sin, 
They roll contented, wallowing in the 

arms 
Of their libidinous goddess. But, ere- 
long. 
Comes loathing of the sensual air they 

breathe. 
Loathing of light unhallowed, sickening 

sense 
Of surfeited enjoyment ; and their lips. 
Spurning the reeky pasture, yearn for 

draughts 
Of rock-rebounding riUs, their eyes for 

sight 
Of Heaven, their limbs for lengths of 

dewy grass : 
What time shai-p Conscience pricks them, 

and awake 
Starts the requickened soul with all her 

powers. 
And breaks. If so she will, the murder- 
ous spell, 
Calling on God. God to her rescue sends 
Voiced seraphims that lead the sinner 

forth 
From darkness unto day, from foul em- 
brace 
Of that bloat Queen into the mother-lap 
Of earth, and the caressent airs of 

Heaven ; 
Where he, by strong persistency of 

prayer, 
By painful pilgrimage, by lengths of fast 
That tame the rebel flesh, by many a 

night 
Of vigil, days of deep repentant tears. 



274 



TANNHAUSEE; 



May cleanse his soul of her adulterate 

stains, 
May from his sin-incrusted spirit shake 
The leprous scales, — and, purely at the 

feet 
Of his Redemption falling, may arise 
Of Christ accepted. Whoso doubts the 

truth, 
Doubting how deep divine Compassion is, 
Lend to my tale a willing ear, and learn. 

Full twenty summers have fled o'er the 

land, 
A score of winters on our Landgrave's 

head 
Have showered their snowy honors, since 

the days 
When in his court no nobler knight was 

known, 
And in his halls no happier bard was 

heard. 
Than bright Tannhauser. Warrior, min- 
strel, he 
Throve for a while within the general eye. 
As some king-cedar, in Crusader tales, 
The stateliest gi'owth of Lebanonian 

gi'oves : 
For now I sing him in his matchless 

prime, 
Not, as in latter days, defaced and 

marred 
By secret sin, and like the wasted torch 
Found in the dank grass at the ghastly 

dawn. 
After a witches' revel. He was a man 
In whom prompt Nature, as in those 

soft climes 
Where life is indolently opulent, 
Blossomed unbid to graces barely won 
From tedious culture, where less kindly 

stars 
Cold influence keep ; and trothful men, 

who once 
Looked in his lordly, luminous eyes, 

and scanned 
His sinewous frame, compact of pliant 

power, 
Aver he was the fairest-favored knight 
That ever, in the light of ladies' looks, 
Made gay these goodly halls. Oh ! 

deeper dole, 
That so august a Spirit, sphered so fair. 
Should from the starry sessions of his 

peers 
Decline, to qxiench so bright a brilliancy 
In Hell's sick spume. Ay me, the 

deeper dole 1 



From yonder tower the wheeling lap. 

wing loves 
Beyond all others, that o'ertops the pines, 
And from his one white, wistful window 

stares ■ 
Into the sullen heart o' the land, — ere- 

while 
The wandering woodman oft, at night- 
fall, heard 
A sad, wild strain of solitary song 
Float o'er the forest. Whoso heard it, 

paused 
Compassionately, crossed himself, and 

sighed, 
"Alas! poor Princess, to thy piteous 

moan 
Heaven send sweet peace ! " Heaven 

heard, and now she lies 
Under the marble, 'mid the silent tombs, 
Calm with her kindred ; as her soul 

above 
Rests with the saints of God. 

The brother's child 
Of our good lord the Landgrave was 

this maid. 
And here with him abode ; for in the 

bi-each 
At Ascalon, her sire in Holy Land 
Had fall en , fighting for the Cross. These 

halls 
Sheltered her infancy, and here she grew 
Among the shaggy barons, like the pale, 
Mild-eyed, March-violet of the North, 

that blows 
Bleak under bergs of ice. Full fair she 

grew. 
And all men loved the rare Elizabeth ; 
But she, of all men, loved one man the 

most, 
Tannhauser, minstrel, knight, the man 

in whom 
All mankind flowered. Fairer growth, 

indeed, 
Of knighthood never blossomed to the 

eye; 
But, furled beneath that florid surface, 

lurked 
A vice of nature, breeding death, not 

life ; 
Such as where some rich Roman, to de- 
light 
Li;xurious days with labyrinthian walks 
Of rose and lily, marble fountains, forms 
Wanton of Grace or Nymph, and wind- 
ing frieze 
With sculpture rough, hath decked the 

summer haunts 



OE, THE BATTLE OF THE BAEDS. 



275 



Of his voluptuous villa, — there, fes- 
tooned 

With flowers, among the Graces and the 
Gods, 

The lurking fever glides. 

A dangerous skill. 

Caught from the custom of those trou- 
badours 

That roam the wanton South, too near 
the homes 

Of the lost gods, had crept in careless use 

Among our northern bards ; to play the 
thief 

ITpon the poets of a pagan time, 

And steal, to purfle their embroidered 
lays, 

Voluptuous trappings of lascivious lore. 

Hence had fl?annhauser, from of old, in- 
dulged 

In song too lavish license to mislead 

The sense among those fair but phantom 
forms 

That haunt the unhallowed past : where- 
from One Shape 

Forth of the cloudy circle gradual grew 

Distinct, in dissolute beauty. She of 
old. 

Who from the idle foam uprose, to reign 

In fancies all as idle, — that fair fiend, 

Venus, whose temples are the veins in 
youth. 

Now more and ever more she mixed her- 
self 
With all his moods, and whispered in 

his walks ; 
Or through the misty minster, when he 

kneeled 
Meek on the flint, athwart the incense- 
smoke 
She stole on sleeping sunbeams, sprinkled 

sounds 
Of cymbals through the silver psalms, 

and marred 
His adoration : most of all, whene'er 
He sought to fan those fires of holy love 
That, sleeping oftenest, sometimes leapt 

to flame. 
Kindled by kindred passion in the eyes 
Of sweet Elizabeth, round him rose and 

rolled 
That miserable magic ; and, at times. 
It drove him forth to wander in the waste 
And desert places, there where prayer- 
less man 
Is most within the power of prowling 
fiends. 



Time put his sickle in among the days. 
Outcropped the coming harvest ; and 

there came 
An evening with the Princess, when 

they twain 
Together ranged the terrace that o'erlaps 
The great south garden. All her simple 

hair 
A single sunbeam from the sleepy west 
O'erfloated ; swam her soft blue eyes 

suffused 
With tender ruth, and her meek face 

was moved 
To one slow, serious smile, that stole to 

find 
Its resting-place on his. 

Then, while he looked 
On that pure loveliness, within himself 
He faintly felt a mystery like pure love : 
For through the arid hollows of a heart 
Sered by delirious dreams, the dewy 

sense 
Of innocent worship stole. The one 

gi'eat word 
That long had hovered in the silent mind 
Now on the lip half settled ; for not yet 
Had love between them been a spoken 

sound 
For after speech to lean on ; only here 
And there, where scattered pauses strewed 

their talk, 
Love seemed to o'erpoise the silence, like 

a star 
Seen through a tender trouble of light 

clouds. 
But, in that moment, some mysterious 

touch, 
A thought — who knows ? — a memory 

— something caught 
Perchance from flying fancies, taking 

form 
Among the sunset clouds, or scented 

gusts 
Of evening through the gorgeous glooms, 

shrunk up 
His better angel, and at once awaked 
The carnal creature sleeping in the flesh. 
Then died within his heart that word of 

life 
Unspoken, which, if spoken, might 

have saved 
The dreadful doom impending. So they 

twain 
Parted, and nothing said : she to her 

tower. 
There with meek wonder to renew the 

calm 



276 



TANNHAUSER; 



And customary labor of the loom ; 
And he into the gradual-creeping dark 
Which now began to draw the rooks to 

roost 
Along the windless woods. 

His soul that eve 
Shook strangely if some flickering shad- 
ow stole 
Across the slopes where sunset, sleeping 

out 
The day's last dream, yet lingered low. 

Old songs 
Were sweet about his brain, old fancies 

fair 
O'erflowed with lurid life the lonely land : 
The twilight trooped with antic shapes, 

and swarmed 
Above him, and the deep mysterious 

woods 
With mystic music drew him to his 

doom. 
So rapt, with idle and with errant foot 
He wandered on to Hbrsel, and those 

glades 
Of melancholy fame, whose poisonous 

glooms. 
Decked with the gleaming hemlock, 

darkly fringe 
The Mount of Venus. There, a drowsy 

sense 
Of languor seized him ; and he sat him 

down 
Among a litter of loose stones and blocks 
Of broken columns, overrun with weed, 
Eemnants of heathen work that some- 
time propped 
A pagan temple. 

Suddenly, the moon. 
Slant from the shoulder of the mon- 
strous hill. 
Swung o'er a sullen lake, and softly 

touched 
With light a shattered statue in the 

weed. 
He lifted up his eyes, and all at once. 
Bright in her baleful beauty, he beheld 
The goddess of his dreams. Beholding 

whom. 
Lost to his love, forgetful of his faith. 
And fevered by the stimulated sense 
Of reprobate desire, the madman cried : 
"Descend, Dame Venus, on my soul 

descend ! 
Break up the marble sleep of those still 

brows 
Where beauty broods ! Down aU my 

senses swim. 



As yonder moon to yonder love-lit lake 
Swims down in glory ! " 

V Hell the horrid prayer 

Accorded with a curse. Scarce those 

wild words 
Were uttered, when like mist the marble 

moved, 
Flusht with false life. Deep in a sleepy 

cloud 
He seemed to sink beneath the sumptu- 
ous face 
Leaned o'er him, — all the whiteness, all 

the warmth. 
And all the luxury of languid limbs, 
Where violet vein -streaks, lost in limpid 

lengths 
Of snowy surface, wander faint and fine ; 
Whilst cymballed music, stolen from 

underneath. 
Creeps through a throbbing light that 

grows and glows 
From glare to greater glare, until it gluts 
And gulfs him in. 

And from that hour, in court. 
And chase, and tilted tourney, many a 

month. 
From mass in holy church, and mirth 

in hall, 
From all the fair assemblage of his peers, 
And all the feudatory festivals, 
Men missed Tannhauser. 

At the first, as when 
From some gi-eat oak his goodliest branch 

is lopped. 
The little noisy birds, that built about 
The foliage, gather in the gap with 

shrill 
And querulous curiosity ; even so. 
From all the twittering tongues that 

thronged the court 
Rose general hubbub of astonishment, 
And vext surmise about the absent man : 
Why absent ? whither wandered ? on 

what quest 
Of errant prowess ? — for, as yet, none 

knew 
His miserable fall. But time wore on. 
The wonder wore away ; round absence 

crept 
The weed of custom, and the absent 

one 
Became at last a memory, and no more. 

One heart within that memory lived 

aloof ; 
One face, remembering his, forgot to 

smile ; 



OR, THE BATTLE OF THE BARDS. 



277- 



Our Landgrave's niece the old familiar 

ways 
Walked like a ghost with unfamiliar 

looks. 

Time put his sickle in among the days. 
The rose burned out ; red Autumn lit 

the woods ; 
The last snows, melting, changed to 

snowy clouds ; 
And Spring once more with incantations 

came 
To wake the buried year. Then did 

our liege. 
Lord Landgrave Herman, — for he loved 

his niece, 
And lightly from her simple heart had 

won • 
The secret of lost smiles, and why she 

drooped, 
A wilted flower, — thinking to dispel. 
If that might be, her mournfulness, let 

cry 
By heralds that, at coming Whitsuntide, 
The minstrel-knights in Wart burg should 

convene 
To hold high combat in the craft of 

song, 
And sing before the Princess for the 

prize. 

But, ere that time, it fell upon a day 
When our good lord went forth to hunt 

the hart. 
That he with certain of his court, 'mid 

whom 
Was Wolfram, — once Tannhauser's 

friend, himself 
Among the minstrels held in high re- 
nown, — 
Came down the Wartburg valley, where 

they deemed 
To hold the hart at siege, and found 

him not : 
But found, far down, at bottom of the 

glade. 
Beneath a broken cross, a lonely knight 
Who sat on a great stone, watching the 

clouds. 
And Wolfram, being a little in the van 
Of all his fellows, eager for the hunt, 
Hurriedly ran to question of the knight 
If he had viewed the hart. But when 

he came 
To parley with him, suddenly he gave 
A shout of great good cheer ; for, all at 



In that same knight he saw, and knew, 
though changed, 

Tannhauser, his old friend and fellow- 
bard. 

Now, Wolfram long had loved Elizabeth 
As one should love a star in heaven, who 

knows 
The distance of it, and the reachlessness. 
But when he knew Tannhauser in her 

heart 
(For loving eyes, in eyes beloved are 

swift 
To search out secrets) not the less his 

own 
Clave unto both ; and, from that time, 

his love 
Lived like an orphan child in charity. 
Whose loss came early, and is gently 

borne. 
Too deep for tears, too constant for com- 
plaint. 
And, therefore, in the absence of his 

friend 
His inmost heart was heavy, when he 

saw 
The shadow of that absence in the face 
He loved beyond all faces upon earth. 

So that when now he found that friend 



Wliom he had missed and mourned, 
right glad was he 

Both for his own and for the Princess' 
sake : 

And ran and fell upon Tannhauser's 
neck, 

And all for joy constrained him to his 
heart. 

Calling his fellows from the neighboring 
hills. 

Who, crowding, came, great hearts and 
open arms 

To welcome back their peer. The Land- 
grave then. 

When he perceived his well-beloved 
knight. 

Was passing glad, and would have ques- 
tioned him 

Of his long absence. But the man him- 
self 

Could answer nothing ; staring with 
blank eyes 

From face to face, then up into the blue 

Bland heavens above ; astonied, and 
like one 

Who, suddenly awaking out of sleep 



2Y8 



TANNHAUSER; 



After sore sickness, knows his friends 

again, 
And would peruse their faces, but breaks 

' . ^^ 
To list the frolic bleating of the lamb 

In far-oif fields, and wonder at the world 

And all its strangeness. Then, while 

the glad knights 
Clung round him, wrung his hands, and 

dinned his ears 
With clattering query, our fair lord him- 
self 
Unfolded how, upon the morrow morn, 
There should be holden festive in his 

halls 
High meeting of the minstrels of the 

land, 
To sing before the Princess for the prize : 
Whereto he bade him with, "0 sir, be 

sure 
There lives a young voice that shall tax 

your wit 
To justify this absence from your friends. 
We trust, at least, that you have brought 

us back 
A score of giants' beards, or dragons' 

tails. 
To lay them at the feet of our fair niece. 
For think not, truant, that Elizabeth 
Will hold you lightly quitted." 

At that name, 
Elizabeth, he started as a man 
That hears on foreign shores, from alien 

lips. 
Some name familiar to his fatherland ; 
And all at once the man's heart inly 

yearns 
For brooks that bubble, and for woods 

that wave 
Before his father's door, while he forgets 
The forms about him. So Tannhauser 

mused 
A little space, then faltered: "0 my 

liege. 
Fares my good lady well ? — I pray my 

lord 
That I may draw me hence a little while. 
For all my mind is troubled : and, 

indeed, 
I know not if my harp have lost his 

skill, 
But, skilled, or skUless, it shall find 

some tone 
To render thanks to-morrow, to my lord ; 
To whose behests a bondsman, in so far 
As my poor service holds, I will assay 
To sing before the Princess for the prize." 



Then, on the morrow mom, from far aiid 

near 
Flowed in the feudatory lords. The 

hills 
Broke out ablaze with banners, and rung 

loud 
With tingling trumpet notes, and neigh- 
ing steeds. 
For all the land, elate with lusty life. 
Buzzed like a beehive in the sun ; and 

aU 
The castle swarmed from bridge to bar- 
bican 
With mantle and with mail, whilst 

minster-bells 
Rang hoarse their happy chimes, till the 

high noon 
Clanged from the towers. Then, o'er 

the platform stoled 
And canopied in crimson, lightly blew 
The sceptred heralds on the silver trump 
Intense sonorous music, sounding in 
The knights to hall. Shrill clinked the 

corridors 
Through all the courts with clashing 

heels, or moved 
With silken murmurs, and elastic sounds 
Of lady laughters light ; as in they flowed 
Lord, Liegeman, Peer, and Prince, and 

Paladin, 
And dame and damsel, clad in dimpling 

silk 
And gleaming pearl ; who, while the 

groaning roofs 
Re-echoed royal music, swept adown 
The spacious hall, with due obeisance 

made 
To the high dais, and on glittering seats 
Dropped one by one, like flocks of bur- 
nished birds 
That settle down with sunset-painted 

plumes 
On gorgeous woods. Again from the 

' outer wall 
The intermitted trumpet blared; and 

each 
Pert page, a-tiptoe, from the benches 

leaned 
To see the minstrel-knights, gold-filleted, 
That entered now the hall : Sir Mande- . 

ville, 
The Swan of Eisnach ; Wilfrid of the 

Hills ; 
Wolfram, surnamed of Willow-brook 

and next 
Tannhauser, christened of the Goldei 

Harp; 



OR, THE BATTLE OF THE BAEDS. 



279 



"With Walter of the Heron-chase ; and 
Max, 

The seer ; Sir Rudolph, of the Raven- 
crest ; 

And Franz, the falconer. They entered, 
each 

In order, followed by a blooming boy 

That bore his harp, and, pacing forward, 
bowed 

Before the Landgrave and Elizabeth. 

Pale sat the Princess in her chair of 

state, 
Perusing with fixed eyes, that all be- 
lied 
Her throbbing heart, the carven archi- 
trave, 
"Whereon th^ intricate much-vexed design 
Of leaf and stem disinterwined itself 
With intinite laboriousness, at last 
Escaping in a flight of angel forms ; 
As though the carver's thought had 

been to show 
The weary struggle of the soul to free 
Her flight from earth's bewilderment, 

and all 
That frets her in the flesh. But when, 

erewhile. 
The minstrels entered, and Tannhauser 

bowed 
Before the dais, the Landgrave, at her 

side, 
Saw, as he mused what theme to give for 

song. 
The pallid forehead of Elizabeth 
Flush to the fair roots of her golden hair, 
And thought within himself: "Our 

knight delays 
To own a love that aims so near our 

throne ; 
Hence, haply, this late absence from our 

court, 
And those bewildered moods which I 

have marked : 
But since love lightly catches, where it 

can, 
At any means to make itself approved. 
And since the singer may to song confide 
What the man dares not trust to simple 

speech, 
I, therefore, so to ease two hearts at once. 
And signify our favor unto both. 
Will to our well-beloved minstrels give 
No theme less sweet than Love : for, 

surely, he 
That loves the best, will sing the best, 

and bear 



The prize from all." Therewith the 

Landgrave rose, 
And all the murmuring Hall was hushed 

to hear. 

" well-beloved minstrels, in my mind 
I do embrace you all, and heartily 
Bid you a lavish welcome to these halls. 
Oft have you flooded this fair space with 

song, 
Waked these voiced walls, and vocal 

made yon roof. 
As waves of surging music lapped against 
Its resonant rafters. Often have your 

strains 
Ennobled souls of true nobility. 
Rapt by your perfect pleadings in the 

cause 
Of all things pure unto a purer sense 
Of their exceeding lovelintiBs. No power 
Is subtler o'er the spirit of man than 

Song — 
Sweet echo of great thoughts, that, in 

the mind 
Of him who hears congenial echoes wak- 
ing, 
Remultiplies the praise of what is good. 
Song cheers the emulous spirit to the 

top 
Of Virtue's rugged steep, from whence, 

all heights 
Of human worth attained, the mortal 

may 
Conjecture of God's unattainable, 
Which is Perfection. — Faith, with her 

sisters twain 
Of Hope and Charity, ye oft have sung, 
And loyal Truth have lauded, and have 

wreathed 
A coronal of music round the brows 
Of stainless Chastity ; nor less have 

praised 
High-minded Valor, in whose righteous 

hand 
Burns the great sword of flaming Forti- 
tude, 
And have stirred up to deeds of high 

emprize 
Our noble knights (yourselves among the 

noblest) 
Whether on German soil for me, their 

prince. 
Fighting, or in the Land of Christ for 

God. 
Sing ye to-day another theme ; to-day 
Within our glad society we see, 
To fellowship of loving friends restored. 



280 



TANNHAUSER; 



A long-missed face ; and hungerly our 

ears 
"Wait the melodious murmurs of a harp 
That wont to feed them daintily. What 

drew 
Our singer forth, and led the fairest light 
Of all our galaxy to swerve astray 
From his fixed orbit, and what now re- 
spheres. 
After deflection long, our errant orb. 
Implies a secret that the subtle power 
Of Song, perchance, may solve. Be then 

your theme 
As universal as the heart of man, 
Giving you scope to touch its deepest 

depths. 
Its highest heights, and reverently to 

explore 
Its mystery of mysteries. Sing of Love : 
Tell us, ye noble poets, from what source 
Springs the prime passion ; to what goal 

it tends ! 
Sing it how brave, how beautiful, how 

bright. 
In essence how ethereal, in effect 
How palpable, how human yet divine. 
Up ! up ! loved singers, smite into the 

chords. 
The lists are opened, set your lays in rest, 
And who of Love best chants the perfect 

praise. 
Him shall Elizabeth as conqueror hail 
And round his royal temples bind the 

bays." 

He said, and sat. And from the middle- 
hall 
Four pages, bearers of the blazoned urn 
That held the name-scrolls of the listed 

bards, 
Moved to Elizabeth. Daintily her hand 
Dipped in the bowl, and one drawn 

scroll delivered 
Back to the pages, who, perusing, cried : 
"Sir Wolfram of the Willow-brook, — 
begin." 

Up rose the gentle singer — he whose 

lays. 
Melodious-melancholy, through the Land 
Live to this day — and, fair obeisance 

made. 
Assumed his harp and stood in act to 

sing. 
Awhile, his dreamy fingers o'er the chords 
Wandered at will, and to the roof was 

turned 



His meditative face ; till, suddenly, 
A soft light from his spiritual eyes 
Broke, and his canticle he thus began : — 

" Love among the saints of God, 
Love within the hearts of men, 
Love in every kindly sod 
That breeds a violet in the glen ; 
Love in heaven, and Love on earth, 
Love in all the amorous air ; 
Whence comes Love ? ah ! tell me 

wliere 
Had such a gracious Presence birth ? 
Lift thy thoughts to Him, all-knowing, 
In the hallowed courts above ; 
From His throne, forever flowing. 
Springs the fountain of all Love : 
Down to earth the stream descending 
Meets the hills, and murmurs then, 
In a myriad channels wending, 
Through the happy haunts of men. 
Blessed ye, earth's sons and daugh- 
ters. 
Love among you flowing free ; 
Guard, oh ! guard its sacred waters, 
Tend on them religiously : 
Let them through your hearts steal 

sweetly, 
With the Spirit, wise and bland, 
Minister unto them meetly. 
Touch them not with carnal hand. 

*' Maiden, fashioned so divinely, 
Whom I worship from afar, 
Smile thou on my soul benignly 
Sweet, my solitary star : 
Gentle harbinger of gladness, 
Still be with me on the way ; 
Only soother of my sadness, 
Always near, though far away : 
Always near, since first upon me 
Fell thy brightness from above. 
And my troubled heart within me 
Felt the sudden flow of Love ; 
At thy sight that gushing river 
Paused, and fell to perfect rest. 
And the pool of Love forever 
Took thy image to its breast. 

" Let me keep my passion purely, 
Guard its waters free from blame, 
Hallow Love, as knowing surely 
It retumeth whence it came ; 
From all channels, good or evil. 
Love, to its pure source enticed, 
Finds its own immortal level 
In the charity of Christ. 



OE, THE BATTLE OF THE BARDS. 



281 



" Ye who hear, behold the river, 
Whence it coineth, whither goes ; 
Glory be to God, the Giver, 
From whose grace the fountain flows. 
Flows and spreads througli all creation, 
Counter-charm of every curse. 
Love, the wat-ers of Salvation, 
Flowing through the universe ! " 

And still the rapt bard, though his voice 

had ceased. 
And all the Hall had murmured into 

praise, 
Pursued his plaintive theme among the 

chords, 
Blending with instinct iine the intricate 

throng 
Of thoughts that flowed beneath his touch 

to find 
Harmonious resolution. As he closed, 
Tannhauser rising, fretted with delay. 
Sent flying fingers o'er the strings, and 

sang : — 

, " Love be my theme ! Sing her awake, 
My harp, for she hath tamely slept 
In Wolfram's song, a stagnant lake 
O'er which a shivering star hath crept. 

" Awake, dull waters, from your sleep, 
Rise, Love, from thy delicious well, 
A fountain ! — yea, but flowing deep 
With nectar and with hydromel ; 

"With gurgling murmurs sweet, that 

teach 
My soul a sleep-distracting dream, 
Till on the marge I lie, and reach 
My longing lips towards the stream ; 

" Whose waves leap upwards to the 

brink 
With drowning kisses to invite 
And drag me, willing, down to drink 
Delirious draughts of rare Delight ; 

" Who careless drink, as knowing well 
The happy pastime shall not tire, 
For Love is inexhaustible, 
And all-unfailing my Desire. 



" Love's fountain-marge is fairly spread 
With every incense-flower that blows, 
With flossy sedge, and moss that gi'ows 
For fervid limbs a dewy bed ; 



" And fays and fairies flit and wend 
To keep the sweet stream flowing free, 
And on Love's languid votary 
The little elves delighted tend ; 

" And bring him honey-dews to sip, 
Rare balms to cool him after play. 
Or with sweet unguents smooth away 
The kiss-crease on his ruffled lip ; 

" And lily white his limbs they lave, 
And roses in his cheeks renew, 
_That he, refreshed, return to glue 
His lips to Love's caressent wave ; 

" And feel, in that immortal kiss, 
His mortal instincts die the death. 
And human fancy fade beneath 
The taste of unimagined bliss ! 



" Thus, gentle audience, since your ear 
Best loves a metaphoric lay. 
Of mighty Love I warble here 
In figures, such as Fancy may : 

" ISTow know ye how of Love I think 
As of a fountain, failing nevei', 
On whose soft marge I lie, and drink 
Delicious draughts of Joy forever." 

Abrupt he ceased, and sat. And for a 

space. 
No longer than the subtle lightning rests 
Upon a sultry cloud at eventide. 
The Princess smiled, and on her parted 

lips 
Hung inarticulate applause ; but she 
Sudden was 'ware that all the hall was 

mute 
With blank disapprobation ; and her 

smile 
Died, and vague fear was quickened in 

her heart 
As Walter of the Heron-chase began : — 

" fountain ever fair and bright, 
He hath beheld thee, source of Love, 
Who sung thee springing from above. 
Celestial from the founts of Light ; 

" But he who from thy waters rare 
Hath thought to drain a gross delight, 
Blind in his spiritual sight. 
Hath ne'er beheld thee, fountain fair ! 



282 



TANNHAUSER; 



" Hath never seen fhe silver glow 
Of thy glad waves, crystalline clear, 
Hath never heard within his ear 
The music of thy murmurous flow. 

" The essence of all Good thou art, 
Thy waters are immortal Ruth, 
Thy murmurs are the voice of Truth, 
And music in the human heart : 

" Thou yieldest Faith that soars on 

high. 
And Sympathy that dwells on earth ; 
The tender trust in human worth. 
The hope that lives beyond the sky. 

" Oh ! waters of the living Word, 
Oh ! fair vouchsafed us from above, 
Oh ! fountain of immortal Love, 
What song of thee ere while I heard ! 

" Learn, sacrilegious bard, from me 
How all ignoble was thy strain. 
That sought with trivial song to stain 
The fountain of Love's purity ; 

"That fountain thou hast never found, 
And shouldst thou come with lips of 

fire 
To slake the thirst of brute Desire, 
'T would shrink and shrivel to the 

ground : 

*' Who seeks in Love's pure stream 

to lave 
His gross heart, finds damnation near ; 
Who laves in Love his spirit clear 
Shall win Salvation from the wave." 

And now again, as when the plaintive lay 
Of Wolfram warbled to hannonious close, 
The crowd grew glad with plaudits ; and 

again 
Tannhauser, ruffled, rose his height, and 

smote 
Rude in the chords his prelude of reply : — 

" What Love is this that melts with 

Ruth, 
Whose murmurs are the voice of 

Truth ? 
Ye dazed singers, cease to dream. 
And learn of me your human theme : 
Of that great Passion at whose feet 
The vassal-world lies low. 
Of Love the mighty, Love the sweet, 
I sing, who reigns below ; 



Who makes men fierce, tame, wild, or 

kind, 
Sovran of every mood. 
Who rules the heart, and rules the 

mind. 
And courses through the Mood : 
Slave of that lavish Power I sing, 
Dispenser of all good. 
Whose pleasure-fountain is the spring 
Of sole beatitude. 

" Sing ye of Love ye ne'er possessed 
In wretched tropes — a vain employ. 

ment ! 
I sing the passion in my breast. 
And know Love only in Enjoyment." 

To whom, while all the rustling hall was 

moved 
With storrny indignation, stern uprose, 
Sharp in retort. Sir Wilfrid of the Hills : 

"Up, minstrels ! rally to the cry 

Of outraged Love and Loyalty ; 

Drive on this slanderer, all the throng, 

And slay him in a storm of song. 

lecher ! shall I sing to thee 

Of Love's iintainted purity. 

Of simple Faith, and tender Ruth, 

Of Chastity and loyal Truth ? 

As well sing Day's resplendent birth 

To the blind mole that delves the earth, 

As seek from gross hearts, sloughed in 

sin. 
Approval of pure Love to win ! 
Rather from thee Fll wring applause 
For Love, the Avenger of his cause ; 
Great Love, the chivalrous and strong. 
To whose wide grasp all arms belong. 
The lance, the battle-axe, and thong, — 
And eke the mastery in song. 

" Love in my heart in all the pride 
Of kinghood sits, and at his side. 
To do the bidding ol' his lord, 
Martial Yalor holds the sword ; 
He strikes for Honor, in the name 
Of Virtue and fair woman's fame. 
And bids me shed my dearest blood 
To venge aspersed maidenhood : 
Who soils her with licentious lie, 
Him will I hew both hip and thigh, 
Or in her cause will dearly die. 
But thou, who in thy flashy song 
Hast sought to do all Honor wrong, 
Pass on, — I will not stoop my crest 
To smite thee, nor lay lance in rest. 



OR, THE BATTLE OF THE BARDS. 



283 



Thy brawling words, of riot born, 
Are worthy only of my scorn ; 
Thus at thy ears this song 1 fling, 
Which in thy heart may plant its sting, 
If ruined Conscience yet may wring 
Remorse from such a guilty thing " 

Scarce from his lips had parted the last 

word 
When, through the rapturous praise that 

rang around. 
Fierce from his seat, uprising, red with 

rage. 
With scornful lip, and contumelious 

eye, 
Tannhauser clanged among the chords, 

and sang ; 

" Floutest thou me, thou grisly Bard ? 
Beware, lest I the just reward 
On thy puffed insolence bestow. 
And cleave thee with my falchion's 

blow, — 
When I in song have laid thee low. 
I serve a Mistress mightier far 
Than tinkling rill, or twinkling star. 
And, as in my great Passion's glow 
Thy passion-dream will melt like snow. 
So I, Love's champion, at her call, 
Will make thee shrink in field or hall. 
And roll before me like a ball. 

"Thou pauper-minded pedant dim. 
Thou starveling-soul, lean heart and 

grim, 
Wouldst thou of Love the praises 

hymn ? 
Then let the gaunt hyena howl 
In praise of Pity ; let the owl 
Whoop the high glories of the noon, 
And the hoarse chough becroak the 

moon ! 
What canst thou prate of Love ? I 

trow 
She never graced thy open brow. 
Nor flushed thy cheek, nor blossomed 

fair 
Upon thy parted lips ; nor e'er 
Bade unpent passion wildly start 
Through the forced portals of thy heart 
To stream in triumph from thine eye. 
Or else delicious death to die 
On other lips, in sigh on sigh. 

" Of Love, dispenser of all bliss, 

Of Love, that crowns me with a kiss, 

I here proclaim me champion-knight ; 



And in her cause will dearly fight 
With sword or song, in hall or plain, 
And make the welkin ring again 
With my fierce blows, or fervent strain. 
But for such Love as thou canst feel, 
Thou wisely hast abjured the steel, 
Averse to lay thy hand ou hilt. 
Or in her honor ride a tilt : 
Tame Love full tamely may'st thou 

jilt, 
And keep bone whole, and blood un- 

spilt." 

Out flushed Sir Wilfrid's weapon, and 

outleapt 
From every angry eye a thousand darts 
Of unsheathed indignation, and a shout 
Went up among the rafters, and the Hall 
Swayed to and fro with tumult ; till the 

voice 
Of our liege lord roared " Peace ! " and, 

midst the clang 
Of those who parted the incensed bards, 
Sounded the harp of Wolfram. Calm 

he stood, 
He only calm of all the brawling crowd, 
Which yet, as is its wont, contagion 

caught 
From neighboring nobleness, and a still- 
ness fell 
On aU, and in the stillness soft he sang : 

" 0, from your sacred seats look down. 
Angels and ministers of good ; 
With sanctity oiir spirits crown. 
And crush the vices of the blood ! 

" Open our hearts and set them free. 
That heavenly light may enter in ; 
And from this fair society 
Obliterate the taint of sin. 

"Thee, holy Love, 1 bid arise 
Propitious to my votive lay ; 
Shine thou upon our darkened eyes, 
And lead us on the perfect way ; 

" As, in the likeness of a Star, 
Thou once arosest, guidance meet, 
And led'st the sages from afar 
To sit at holy Jesu's feet : 

"So guide us, safe from Satan's snares. 
Shine out, sweet Star, around, above, 
Till we have scaled the mighty stairs, 
And reached thy mansimis, Heavenly 
Love ! " 



284 



TANNHAUSER; 



Then, while great shouts went up of 

"Give the prize 
To Wolfram," leapt Tannhauser from 

his seat. 
Fierce passion flaming from his lustrous 

orbs. 
And, as a sinner, desperate to add 
Depth to damnation by one latest crime, 
Dies boastful of his blasphemies — even 

so, 
Tannhauser, conscious of the last disgrace 
Incurred by such song in such company. 
Intent to vaunt the vastness of his sin, 
Thus, as in ecstasy, the song renewed : 

" Goddess of Beauty, thee I hymn, 
And ever w^orship at thy shrine ; 
Thou, who on mortal senses dim 
Descending, makest man divine. 

"Who hath embraced thee on thy 

throne. 
And pastured on thy royal kiss, 
He, happy, knows, and knows alone, 
Love's fuU beatitude of bliss. 

" Grim bards, of Love who nothing 

know, 
Now cease the unequal strife between 

us ; 
Dare as I dared ; to Hbrsel go. 
And taste Love on the lips of Venus." 

Uprose on every side and rustled down 
The affrighted dames ; and, like the 

shuddering crowd 
Of party-colored leaves that flits before 
The gust of mid October, all at once 
A hundred jewelled shoulders, huddling, 

swept 
The hall, and slanted to the doors, and 

fled 
Before the storm, which now from shag- 
gy brows 
'Gan dart indignant lightnings. One 

alone 
Of all that awe-struck womanhood re- 
mained, 
The Princess. She, a purple harebell 

frail, 
That, swathed with whirlwind, to the 

bleak rock clings 
When half a forest falls before the blast. 
Rooted in utter wretchedness, and robed 
In mockery of splendid state, still sat ; 
Still watched the waste that widened in 
her life ; 



And looked as one that in a nightmare 3 

hangs 
Upon an edge of horror, while from be- 
neath 
The creeping billow of calamity 
Sprays all his hair with cold ; but hand 

or foot 
He may not move, because the formless 

Fear 
Gapes vast behind him. Grief within 

the void 
Of her stark eyes stood tearless : terror 

blanched 
Her countenance ; and, over cloudy 

brows. 
The shaken diamond made a restless 

light. 
And trembled as the trembling star that 

hangs 
O'er Cassiopeia i' the windy north. 

But now, from farthest end to end of all 
The sullen movement swarming under- 
neath, 
Uprolled deep hollow groans of gr-owing 

wrath. 
And, where erewhile in rainbow crescent 

ranged 
The bright-eyed beauties of the court, 

fast thronged 
Faces inflamed with wrath, that rose and 

fell 
Tumultuously gathering from between 
Sharp-slanting lanes of steel. For every i 

sword 
Flashed bare upon a sudden ; and over 

these. 
Through the wide bursten doors the 

sinking sun 
Streamed lurid, lighting up that steely 

sea ; 
Which, spotted white with foamy plumes, 

and ridged 
With glittering iron, clashed together 

and closed 
About Tannhauser. Careless of the 

wrath 
Roused by his own rash song, the singer 

stood ; 
Rapt in remembrance, or by fancy fooled 
A visionary Venus to pursue, 
With eyes that roamed in rapture the 

blank air. 
Until the sharp light of a hundred swords 
Smote on the fatal trance, and scattered 

all 
Its fervid fascination. Swift from sheath 



OB, THE BATTLE OF THE BARDS. 



285 



Then leapt tlie glaive and glittered in 

his hand, 
And warily, with eye upon the watch, 
Receding to the mighty main support 
That, from the centre, propped the pon- 
derous roof, 
There, based against the pillar, fronting 

full 
His sudden foes, he rested resolute, 
Waiting assault. 

But, hollow as a bell, 
That tolls for tempest from a storm-clad 

tower. 
Rang through the jangling shock of 

arms and men 
The loud voice of the Landgrave. Wide 

he swept 
The solemn sceptre, crying "Peace!" 

then 4aid : 

*' Ye Lieges of Thuringia ! whose just 

scorn, 
In judgment sitting on your righteous 

brows, 
Would seem to have forecast the dubious 

doom 
Awaiting our decision ; ye have heard, 
Not wrung by torture from reluctant lips, 
Nor yet breathed forth with penitential 

pain 
In prayer for pardon, nay, but rather 

fledged 
And barbed with boastful insolence, such 

a crime 
Confest, as turns to burning coals of 

wrath 
The dewy eyes of Pity, nor to Hope 
One refuge spares, save such as rests 

perchance 
Within the bounteous bosom of the 

Church ; 
Who, caring for the frailty of her flock, 
Holds mercy measureless as heaven is high. 
Shuddering, ourselves have listened to 

I what breaks 
All bonds that bound to this unhappy 

man 
The covenanted courtesies of knights, 
The loyalties of lives by faith knit fast 
In spiritual communion. What behoves, 
After deliberation, to award 
In sentence, I to your high council leave, 
Undoubting. What may mitigate in 

aught 
The weight of this acknowledged infamy 
Weigh with due balance. What to 

justice stern 



Mild-minded mercy yet may reconcile 
Search inly. Not with rashness, not in 

wrath. 
Invoking from the right hand of high God 
His dread irrevocable angel. Death ; 
Yet not unwary how one spark of hell. 
If unextinguished, down the night of 

time 
May, like the wreckers' beacon from the 

reefs, 
Lure many to destruction : nor indeed 
Unmindful of the doom by lire or steel 
This realm's supreme tribunals have re- 
served 
For those that, dealing in damnation, 

hold 
Dark commerce with the common foe of 

man. 
Weigh you in all its circumstance this 

crime : 
And, worthily judging, though your 

judgment be 
As sharp as conscience, be it as con- 
science clear." 

He ended : and a bitter interval 
Of silence o'er the solemn hall congealed, 
Like frost on a waste water, in a place 
Where rocks confront each other. Mar- 
shalled round, 
Black-bearded cheek and chin, with 

hand on heft 
Bent o'er the pommels of their planted 

swords 
A dreary cirque of faces ominous, 
The sullen barons on each other stared 
Significant. As, ere the storm descends 
Upon a Druid grove, the great trees 

stand 
Looking one way, and stiller than their 

wont. 
Until the thunder, rolling, frees the 

wind 
That rocks them altogether ; even so. 
That savage circle of grim-gnarled men. 
Awhile in silence storing stormy thoughts, 
Stood breathless ; till a murmur v oved 

them all, 
And louder growing, and louder, burst 

at last 
To a universal irrepressible roar 
Of voices roaring, "Let him die the 

death ! " 
And, in that roar released, a hundred 

swords 
Rushed forward, and in narrowing circle 

sloped 



286 



TANNHAUSER; 



Sharp rims of shining horror round the 

doomed, 
Undaunted minstrel. Then a piteous 

cry; 
And from the purple baldachin down 

sprang 
The Princess, gleaming like a ghost, and 

slid 
Among the swords, and standing in the 

midst 
Swept a wild arm of prohibition forth. 
Cowering, recoiled the angry, baffled 

surge, 
Leaving ou either side a horrid hedge 
Of rifted glare, as when the Ked Sea 

waves 
Hung heaped and sundered, ere they 

roaring fell 
On Egypt's chariots. So there came a 

hush ; 
And in the hush her voice, heavy with 

scorn : 

"Or shall I call you men? or beasts? 

who seem 
No nobler than the bloodhound and the 

wolf 
Which scorn to prey upon their proper 

kind! 
Christians I will not call you ! who de- 
fraud 
That much-misapprehended holy name 
Of reverence due by such a deed as, done, 
Will clash against the charities of Christ, 
And make a marred thing and a mockery 
Of the fair face of Mercy. You dull 

hearts. 
And hard ! have ye no pity for your- 
selves ? 
For man no pity ? man whose common 

cause 
Is shamed and saddened by the stain 

that falls 
Upon a noble nature ! You blind hands, 
Thrust out so fast to smite a fallen friend ! 
Did ye not all conspire, whilst yet he 

stood 
The stateliest soul among you, to set 

forth 
And fix him in the foremost ranks of 

men ? 
Content that he, your best, should bear 

the brunt. 
And head the van against the scornful 

fiend 
That will not waste his weapons on the 

herd, 



But saves them for the noblest. And 

shall Hell 
Triumph through you, that triumph in 

the shame 
Of this eclipse that blots your brightest 

out. 
And leaves you dark in his extinguished 

light ? 
0, who that lives but hath within his 

heart 
Some cause to dread the suddenness of 

death ? 
And God is merciful ; and suffers us, 
Even for our sins' sake ; and doth spare 

us time. 
Time to grow ready, time to take fare- 
well ! 
And sends us monitors and ministers — 
Old age, that steals the fulness from the 

veins ; 
And griefs, that take the glory from the 

eyes; 
And pains, that bring us timely news of 

death ; 
And tears, that teach us to be glad of him. 
for who can take farewell of all his sins 
On such a sudden summons to the grave ? 
Against high Heaven hath this man 

sinned, or you ? 
0, if it be against high Heaven, to 

Heaven 
Remit the compt ! lest, from the armory 
Of the Eternal Justice ye pluck down, 
Heedless, that bolt the Highest yet 

withholds 
From this low-fallen head, — how fallen ! 

how low ! 
Yet not so fallen, not so low fallen, but 

what 
Divine Redemption, reaching every- 
where. 
May reach at last even to this wretched- 
ness, 
And, out of late repentance, raise it up 
With pardon into peace," » 

She paused : she touched. 
As with an angel's finger, him whose 

pride 
Obdurate now had yielded, and he lay. 
Vanquished by Pity, broken at her feet. 
She, lingering, waited answer, but none 

came , 
Across the silence. And again she spake : 

" O, not for him alone, and not for that 
Which to remember now makes life for 
me 



OR, THE BATTLE OF THE BARDS. 



287 



A wilderness of homeless griefs, I plead 
Before you ; but, Princes, for your- 
selves ; 
For all that in your nobler nature stirs 
To vindicate Forgiveness and enlarge 
The lovely laws of Pity ! Whicii of 

)'ou, 
Here in the witness of all-judging God, 
Stands spotless ? Which of you will 

boast himself 
More miserably injured by this man 
Than I, whose heart of all that lived in it 
He hath untenanted ? 0, horrible ! 
Unheard of ! from the blessed lap of life 
To send the soul, asleep in all her sins, 
Down to perdition ! Be not yours the 

hands 
To do this desperate wrong in sight of all 
The ruthful faces of the Saints in 
Heaven." 

She passionately pleading thus, her voice 
Over their hearts moved like that earnest 

wind 
That, laboring long against some great 

nigh cloud. 
Sets free, at last, a solitary star, 
Then sinks ; but leaves the night not all 

forlorn 
Ere the soft rain o'ercomes it. 

This long while 
Wolfram, whose harp and voice were 

overborne 
By burly brawlers in the turbulence 
That shook that stormy senate, stood 

apart 
With vainly-vigilant eye, and writhen 

hands, 
All in mute trouble : too gentle to ap- 
prove, 
Too gentle to prevent, what passed : and 

still 
Divided in himself 'twixt sharpest grief 
To see his friend so fallen, and a drear 
Strange horror of the crime whereby he 

fell. 
So, like a headland light that down dark 

waves 
Shines o'er some sinking ship it fails to 

save. 
Looked the pale singer down the lurid 

hall. 
But when the pure voice of Elizabeth 
Ceased, and clear-lighted all with noble 

thoughts 
Her face glowed as an angel's, the sweet 

Bard, 



Whose generous heart had scaled with 

that loved voice 
Up to the lofty levels where it ceased, 
Stood forth, and from the dubious silence 

caught 
And carried up the purpose of her prayer ; 
And drew it out, and di'ove it to the 

heart. 
And clenched it with conviction in the 

mind. 
And fixed it firm in judgment. 

From deep muse 
The Landgrave started, toward Tann- 

hauser strode. 
And, standing o'er him with an eye 

wherein 
Salt sorrow and a moody pity gleamed, 
Spake hoarse of utterance : 

"Arise ! go forth ! 
Go from us, mantled in the shames which 

make 
Thee, stranger whom mine eye hence- 
forth abhors. 
The mockery of the man I loved, and 

mourn. 
Go from these halls yet holy with the, 

voice 
Of her whose intercession for thy sake, — 
If any sacred sorrow yet survive 
All ruined virtues, — in remorse shall 

steep 
The memory of her wrongs. For thee 

remains 
One hope, unhappiest ! reject it not. 
There goeth a holy pilgrimage to Rome, 
Which not yet from the borders of our 

land 
Is parted ; pious souls and meek, whom 

thou 
Haply may'st join, and of those holy 

hands. 
Which sole have power to bind or loose, 

receive 
Remission of thy sin. For save alone 
The hand of Christ's high Vicar upon 

earth 
A hurt so heinous what may heal ? 

What save 
A soul so fallen? Go forth upon thy. 

ways, 
Which are not ours : for we no more 

may mix 
Congenial minds in converse sweet, no 

more 
Together pace these halls, nor ever hear 
Thy harp as once when all was pure and 

glad, 



288 



TANNHAUSER; 



Among the days which have been. All 
thy paths 

Henceforth be paths of penitence and 
prayer, 

Whilst over ours thy memory moving 
makes 

A shadow, and a silence in our talk. 

Get thee from hence, all that now re- 
mains 

Of one we honored ! Till the hand that 
holds 

The keys of heaven hath oped for thee 
the doors 

Of life in that far distance, let mine eye 

See thee no more. Go from us ! " 

Even then. 
Even whilst he spake, like some sweet 

miracle. 
From darkening lands that glimmered 

through the doors 
Came, faintly heard along the filmy air 
That bore it floating near, a choral chant 
Of pilgrims pacing by the castle wall ; 
And " salvum me fac Domine " they 

sung 
Sonorous, in the ghostly going out 
Of the red-litten eve along the land. 

Then, like a hand across the heart of 

him 
That heard it moved that music from 

afar. 
And beckoned forth the better hope 

which leads 
A man's life up along the rugged road 
Of high resolve, Tannhauser moved, as 

moves 
The folded serpent smitten by the spring 
And stirred with sudden sunlight, when 

he casts 
His spotted skin, and, renovated, gleams 
With novel hues. One lingering long 

look. 
Wild with remorse and vague with vast 

regrets, 
He lifted to Elizabeth. His thoughts 
Were then as those dumb creatures in 

their pain 
That make a language of a look. He 

tossed 
Aloft his arms, and down to the great 

doors 
With drooped brows striding, groaned 

" To Rome, to Rome ! " 
Whilst the deep hall behind him caught 

the cry 



And drove it clamorous after him, from 

all 
Its hollow roofs reverberating '* Rome ! " 

A fleeting darkness through the lurid 

arch ; 
A flying form along the glare beyond ; 
And he was gone. The scowling Eve 

reached out 
Across the hills a fiery arm, and took 
Tannhauser to her, like a sudden death. 

So ended that great Battle of the Bards, 
Whereof some rumor to the end of time 
Will echo in this land. 

And, voided now 
Of all his multitudes, the mighty Hall, 
Dumb, dismally dispageanted, laid bare 
His ghostly galleries to the mournful 

moon ; 
And Night came down, and Silence, and 

the twain 
Mingled beneath the starlight. Wheeled 

at will 
The flitter-winged bat round lonely 

towers 
Where, one by one, from darkening 

casements died 
The taper's shine ; the howlet from the 

hills 
Whooped ; and Elizabeth, alone with 

Night 
And Silence, and the Ghost of her slain 

youth. 
Lay lost among the ruins of that day. 

As when the buffeting gusts, that adverse 

blow 
Over the Caribbean Sea, conspire 
Conflicting breaths, and, savagely begot. 
The fierce tornado rotatory wheels. 
Or sweeps centripetal, or, all forces 

joined, 
Whirls circling o'er the maddened waves, 

and they 
Lift up their foaming backs beneath the 

keel 
Of some frail vessel, and, careering high 
Over a sunken rock, with a sudden 

plunge _ 

Confound her, — stunned and strained, 

upon the peak 
Poising one moment, ere she forward fall 
To float, dishelmed, a wreck upon the 

waves : 
So rose, engendered by what furious 

blasts 



OR, THE BATTLE OF THE BARDS. 



289 



Of passion, that fell hurricane that swept 
Elizabeth to her doom, and left her now 
A helmless hull upon the savage seas 
Of life, without an aim, to float forlorn. 

Longwhile, still shuddering from the 

shock that jarred 
The bases of her being, piteous wreck 
Of ruined hopes, upon her couch she lay, 
Of life and time oblivious ; all her mind, 
Locked in a rigid agony of grief, 
Clasping, convulsed, its unwept woe ; 

her heart 
"Writhing and riven ; and her burthened 

brain 
Blind with the weight of tears that 

would not flow. 
But when, at last, the healing hand of 

Timer 
Had wrought repair upon her shattered 

frame ; 
Ajid those unskilled physicians of the 

mind — 
Importunate, fond friends, a host of 

kin — 
Drew her perforce from solitude, she 

passed 
Back to the world, and walked its weary 

ways 
With dull mechanic motions, such as 

make 
A mockery of life. Yet gave she never, 
By weeping or by wailing, outward sign 
Of that great inward agony that she bore ; 
For she was not of those whose sternest 

sorrow 
Outpours in plaints, or weeps itself in 

dew ; 
Not passionate she, nor of the happy 

souls 
Whose grief comes tempered with the 

gift of tears. 

So, through long weeks and many a 
weary moon, 

Silent and self-involved, without a sigh. 

She suffered. There, whence consola- 
tion comes, 

She sought it — at the fo"ot of Jesu's 
cross, 

And on the bosom of the Yirgin-spouse, 

And in communion with the blessed 
Saints. 

But chief for him she prayed whose 
grievous sin 

Had wrought her desolation ; God be- 
sought 

19 



To touch the leprous soul and make it 

clean ; 
And sued the Heavenly Pastor to recall 
The lost sheep, wandei'ed from the pleas- 
ant ways. 
Back to the pasture of the paths of 

peace. 
So thrice a day, what time the blushing 

morn 
Crimsoned the orient sky, and when the 

sun 
Glared from mid-heaven or weltered in 

the west. 
Fervent she prayed ; nor in the night 

forewent 
Her vigils ; tiU at last from prayer she 

drew 
A calm into her soul, and in that calm 
Heard a low whisper — like the breeze 

that breaks 
The deep peace of the forest ere the 

chirp 
Of earliest bird salutes the advent Day — 
Thrill through her, herald of the dawn 

of Hope. 

Then most she loved from forth her 

leafy tower 
Listless to watch the irrevocable clouds 
Roll on, and daylight waste itself away 
Along those dreaming woods, whence 

evermore 
She mused, " He will return " ; and 

fondly wove 
Her webs of wistful fantasy till the moon 
Was high in heaven, and in its light 

she kneeled, 
A faded watcher through the weary 

night, 
A meek, sweet statue at the silver 

shrines. 
In deep, perpetual prayer for him she 

loved. 
And from the pitying Sisterhood of 

Saints 
Haply that prayer shall win an angel 

down 
To be his unseen minister, and draw 
A drowning conscience from the deeps 

of Hell. 

Time put his sickle in among the days. 
Blithe Summer came, and into dimples 

danced 
The fair and fructifying Earth, anon 
Showering the gathered guerdon of her 

play 



290 



TANNHAUSEE; 



Into the lap of Autumn ; Autumn stored 
The gift, piled ready to the palsied hand 
Of blind and begging "Winter ; and when 

he 
Closed his well-provendered days, Spring 

lightly came 
And scattered sweets upon his sullen 

grave. 
And twice the seasons passed, the sisters 

three 
Doingglad service for their hoary brother, 
And twice twelve moons had waxed and 

waned, and twice 
The weary world had pilgrimed round 

the sun, 
When from the outskirts of the land 

there came 
Eumor of footsore penitents from Rome 
Returning, jubilant of remitted sin. 

So chanced it, on a silent April eve 
The westering sun along the Wartburg 

vale 
Shot level beams, and into glory touched 
The image of Madonna, — where it stands 
Hard by the common way that climbs the 

steep, — 
The image of Madonna, and the face 
Of meek Elizabeth turned towards the 

Queen 
Of Sorrows, sorrowful in patient prayer ; 
"When, through the silence and the 

sleepy leaves, 
A breeze blew up the vale, and on the 

breeze 
Floated a plaintive music. Shethatheard, 
Trembled ; the prayerupon her partedlips 
Suspended hung, and one swift hand she 

pressed 
Against the palpitating heart whose 

thi-obs 
Confused the cunning of her ears. Ah 

God! _ 
"Was this the voice of her returning joy ? 
The psalm of shriven pilgrims to their 

homes 
Returning ? Ay ! it swells upon the 

breeze 
The *' Nuiic Dimittis" of glad souls that 

sue 
After salvation seen to part in peace. 
Then up she sprung, and to a neighbor- 
ing copse 
Swift as a startled hind, when the ghostly 

moon 
Draws sudden o'er the silvered heather- 
bells 



The monstrous shadow of a cloud, she 

sped ; 
Pausing, low-crouched, within a maze 

of shrubs, 
"Whose emerald slivers fringed the rugged 

way 
So broad, the pilgrim's garments as they 

passed 
"Would brush the leaves that hid her. 

And anon 
They came in double rank, and two by 

two, 
"With cumbered steps, with haggard gait 

that told 
Of bodily toil and trouble, with besoiled 
And tattered garments ; nathless with 

glad eyes, 
"Whence looked the soul disburthened of 

her sin. 
Climbing the rude path, two by two 

they came. 
And she, that watched with what in. 

tensest gaze 
Them coming, saw old faces that she 

knew. 
And every face turned skywards, while 

the lips 
Poured out the heavenly psalm, and 

every soul 
Sitting seraphic in the upturned eyes 
"With holy fervor rapt upon the song. 
And still they came and passed, and still 

she gazed ; 
And still she thought, "Now comes he !" 

and the chant 
"Went heavenwards, and the filed pil- 
grims fared 
Beside her, till their tale wellnigh was 

told. 
Then o'er her soul a shuddering horror 

crept, 
And, in that agony of mind that makes 
Doubt more intolerable than despair, 
"With sudden hand she brushed aside 

the sprays, 
And from the thicket leaned and looked. 

The last 
Of all the pilgrims stood within the ken 
Of her keen gaze, — save him all scanned, 

and he 
No sooner scanned than cancelled from 

her eyes 
By vivid lids swept down to lash away 
Him hateful, being other than she 

sought. 
So for a space, blind with dismay, she 

paused, 



OR, THE BATTLE OF THE BARDS. 



291 



But, he approaching, from the thicket 

leapt, 
Clutched with wrung hands his robe, and 

gasped, "The Knight 
That with you went, returns not ? " In 

his psalm 
The fervid pilgrim made no pause, yet 

gazed 
At his wild questioner, intelligent 
Of her demand, and shook his head and 

passed. 
Then she, with that mute answer stabbed 

to the heart. 
Sprung forward, clutched him yet once 

more, and cried, 
"In Mary's name, and in the name of 

God, 
Received the knight his shrift ? " And, 

once again, 
The pilgrim, sorrowful, shook his head 

and sighed. 
Sighed in the singing of his psalm, and 

passed. 

Then prone she fell upon her face, and 

prone 
Within her mind Hope's shattered fabric 

fell,— 
The dear and delicate fabric of frail Hope 
Wrought by the simple cunning of her 

thoughts, 
That, laboring long, through many a 

dreamy day 
And many a vigil of the wakeful night, 
Piecemeal had reared it, patiently, with 

pain, 
From out the ruins of her ancient peace. 
ancient Peace ! that never shalt re- 
turn ; 
O ruined Hope ! Fancy ! over-fond, 
Futile artificer that build'st on air, 
Marred is thy handiwork, and thou shalt 

please 
With plastic fantasies her soul no more. 

So lay she cold against the callous ground. 
Her pale face pillowed on a stone, her 

eyes 
Wide open, fixed into a ghastly stare 
That knew no speculation ; for her mind 
Was dark, and all her faculty of thought 
Compassionately cancelled. But she lay 
Not in the embrace of loyal Death, who 

keeps 
His bride forever, but in treacherous 

arms 
Of Sleep that, sated, will restore to Grief 



Her, snatched a sweet space from his 

cruel clutch. 
So lay she cold against the callous ground, 
And none was near to heed her, as the 

sun. 
About him drawing the vast-skirted 

clouds. 
Went down behind the western hill to die. 

Now Wolfram, when the rumor reached 

his ears 
That, from their quest of saving grace 

returned. 
The pilgrims all within the castle-court 
Were gathered, flocked about by happy 

friends. 
Passed from his portal swiftly, and ran 

out 
And joined the clustering crowd. Full 

many a face. 
Wasted and wan, he recognized, and 

clasped 
Full many a lean hand clutching at his 

own, 
Of those who, stretched upon the grass, 

or propped 
Against the bowlder-stones, were pressed 

about 
By weeping women, clamorous to unbind 
Their sandal-thongs and bathe the 

bruised feet. 
Then up and down, and swiftly through 

and through. 
And round about, skirting the crowd, 

he hurried. 
With greetings fair to all ; tUl, filled 

with fear. 
Half-hopeless of his quest, yet harboring 

hope. 
He paused perplexed beside the castle 

gates. 
There, at his side, the youngest of the 

train, 
A blue-eyed pilgrim tarried, and to him 
Turned Wolfram questioning of Tann- 

hauser's fate, 
And learnt in few words how, his sin 

pronounced 
Deadly and irremediable, the knight 
Had faded from before the awful face 
Of Christ's incensed Vicar ; and none 

knew 
Whither he wandered, to what desolate 

lands, 
Hiding his anguish from the eyes of men. 
Then Wolfram groaned, and clasped his 

hands, and cried, 



292 



TANNHAUSER; 



"Merciful God!" and fell upon his 

knees 
In purpose as of prayer, — but, suddenly. 
About the gate the crowd moved, and a 

cry 
Went up for space, when, rising, he be- 
held 
Four maids who on a pallet bore the 

form 
Of wan Elizabeth. The whisper grew 
That she had met the pilgrims, and had 

learned 
Tannhauser's fate, and fallen beside the 

way. 
And Wolfram, in the ghastly torchlight, 

saw 
The white face of the Princess turned 

to his, 
And for a space their eyes met ; then 

she raised 
One hand towards Heaven, and smiled 

as who should say, 
" friend, I journey unto God ; fare- 
well ! " 
But he could answer nothing ; for his 

eyes 
Were blinded by his tears, and through 

liis tears 
Dimly, as in a dream, he saw her borne 
Up the broad ^granite steps that wind 

within 
The palace ; and his inner eye, en- 
tranced, 
Saw in a vision four great Angels stand, 
Expectant of her spirit, at the foot 
Of flights of blinding brilliancy of stairs 
Innumerable, that through the riven 

skies 
Scaled to the City of the Saints of God. 
Then, when thick night fell on his soul, 

and all 
The vision fled, he solitary stood 
A crazed man within the castle-court ; 
Whence issuing, with wild eyes and 

wandering gait 
He through the darkness, groaning, 

passed away. 

All that lone night, along the haunted 

hills, 
By dizzy brinks of mountain precipices, 
He fleeted, aimless as an unused wind 
That wastes itself about a wilderness. 
Sometimes from low-browed caves, and 

hollow crofts. 
Under the hsaiging woods, there came 

and went 



A voice of wail upon the midnight air, 
As of a lost soul mourning ; and the 

voice 
Was still the voice of his remembered 

friend. 
Sometimes (so fancy mocked the fears 

she bred !) 
He heard along the lone and eery land 
Low demon laughters ; and a sullen 

strain 
Of horror swelled upon the breeze ; and 

sounds 
Of wizard dance, with shawm and tim- 
brel, flew 
Ever betwixt waste air and wandering 

cloud 
O'er pathless peaks. Then, in the dis- 
tance tolled, 
Or seemed to toll, a knell: the breezes 

dropped : 
And, in the sudden pause, that passing 

bell 
With ghostly summons bade him back 

return 
To where, till dawn, a shade among the 

shades 
Of Wartburg, watching one lone tower, 

he saw 
A light that waned with all his earthly 

hopes. 
The calm Dawn came and from the east- 
ern clitt'. 
Athwart the glistening slopes and cold 

green copse, 
Called to him, careless of a grief not 

hers; 
But he, from all her babbling birds, and 

all 
Her vexing sunlight, with a weary 

heart 
Drew close the darkness of the glens 

and glades 
About him, flying through the forest 

deeps. 
And day and night, dim eve and dewy 

dawn, 
Three times returning, went uncared for 

by; 
And thrice the double twilights rose and 

fell 
About a land where nothing seemed the 

same, 
At eve or dawn, as in the time gone by. 
But, when the fourth day like a stranger 

slipped 
To his unhonored grave, God's Angel 

passed 



OR, THE BATTLE OF THE BARDS. 



293 



Across the threshold of the Landgrave's 

hall, 
And in his bosom bore to endless peace 
The weary spirit of Elizabeth. 
Then, in that hour when Death with 

gentle hand 
Had drooped the quiet eyelids o'er the 

eyes 
That Wolfram loved, to "Wolfram's heart 

there came 
A calmness like the calmness of a grave 
Walled safe from all the noisy walks of 

men 
In some green place of peace where 

daisies grow. 
His tears fell in the twilight with the 

dews, 
Soft as the dews that with the twilight 

fell, • 
When, over scarred and weather-wound- 
ed walls. 
Sharp-jagged mountain cones, and tan- 
gled quicks. 
Eve's spirit, settKng, laid the land to 

sleep 
In skyey trance. Nor yet less soft to 

fuse 
Memory with hope, and earth with 

heaven, to him, 
Athwai't the harsher anguish of that 

day, 
There stole with tears the tender human 

sense 
Of heavenly mercy. Through that 

milder mood. 
Like waifs that float to shore when 

storms are spent. 
Flowed to his heart old memories of his 

friend, 
.O'erwoven with the weed of other 

griefs. 
Of other griefs for her that grieved no 

more — 
And of that time when, like a blazing 

star 
That moves and mounts between the 

Lyre and Crown, 
Tannhiiuser shone; ere sin came, and 

with sin 
Sorrow. And now if yet Tannhauser 

lived 
None knew : and if he lived, what hope 

in life ? 
And if he lived no more, what rest in 

death ? 
But every way the dreadful doom of 

sin. 



Thus, musing much on all the mystery 
Of life, and death, and love that will 

not die, 
He wandered forth, incurious of the 

way; 
Which took the wont of other days, and 

wound 
Along the valley. Now the nodding 

star 
Of even, and the deep, the dewy hour 
Held all the sleeping circle of the hills ; 
Nor any cloud the stainless heavens ob- 
scured. 
Save where, o'er Hbrsel folded in the 

frown 
Of all his wicked woods, a fleecy fringe 
Of vapor veiled the slowly sinking 

moon. 
There, in the shade, the stillness, o'er 

his harp 
Leaning, of love, and life, and death he 

sang 
A song to which irom all her aery 

caves 
The mountain echo murmured in her 



But, as the last strain of his solemn 

song 
Died off among the solitary stars, 
There came in answer from the folded 

hills 
A note of human woe. He turned, he 

looked 
That way the sound came o'er the lonely 

air ; 
And, seeing, yet believed not that he 

saw. 
But, nearer moving, saw indeed hard by. 
Dark in the darkness of a neighboring 

hill. 
Lying among the splintered stones and 

stubs 
Flat in the fern, with limbs diflfused as 

one 
That, having fallen, cares to rise no 

more, 
A pilgrim ; all his weeds of pilgrimage 
Hanging and torn, his sandals stained 

with blood 
*0f bruised feet, and, broken in his 

hand. 
His wreathed staff. 

And Wolfram wistfully 
Looked in his face, and knew it not. 

"Alas! 
Not him," he murmured, "not my 

friend ! " And then. 



294 



TAJNJNHAUSEK; 



" What art thou, pilgrim ? whence thy 

way ? how fall'n 
In this wild glen ? at this lone hour 

abroad 
When only Grief is stirring ? " Unto 

whom 
That other, where he lay in the long 

grass. 
Not rising, but with petulant gesture, 

"Hence ! 
Whate'er I am, it skills not. Thee I 

know 
Full well, Sir Wolfram of the Willow- 
brook, 
The well-beloved Singer ! " 

Like a dart 
From a friend's hand that voice through 

Wolfram went : 
For Memory over all the ravaged form 
Wherefrom it issued, wandering, failed 
; to find 

The man she mourned ; but Wolfram, to 

the voice 
No stranger, started smit with pain, as 

all 
The past on those sharp tones came back 

to break 
His heart with hopeless knowledge. 

And he cried, 
"Alas, my brother ! " Such a change, 

so drear. 
In all so unlike all that once he was 
Showed the lost knight Tannhauser, 

where he lay 
Fallen across the split and morselled crags 
Like a dismantled ruin. And Wolfram 

said, 
"0 lost ! how comest thou, unabsolved, 

once more 
Among these valleys visited by death, 
And shadowed with the shadow of thy 

sin ? " 
Whereto in scorn Tannhauser, "Be at 

rest, 
fearful in thy righteousness ! not thee. 
Nor grace of thine, I seek." 

Speaking, he rose 
The spectre of a beauty waned away ; 
And, like a hollow echo of himself 
Mocking his own last words, he mur» 

mured, "Seek ! 
Alas ! what seek I here, or anywhere ? 
Whose way of life is like the crumbled 

stair 
That winds and winds about a ruined 

tower. 
And leads nowhither ! " 



But Wolfram cried, "Yet turn ! 
For, as I live, I will not leave thee 

thus. 
My life shall be about thee, and my 

voice 
Lure scared Hope back to find a resting- 
place 
Even in the jaws of Death. I do adjure 

thee. 
By all that friendship yet may claim, 

declare 
That, even though unabsolved, not un- 

contrite. 
Thy soul no more hath lapsed into the 

snare 
Of that disastrous sorcery. Bid me hail, 
Seen through the darkness of thy deso- 
lation. 
Some light of purer purpose ; since I 

deem 
Not void of purpose hast thou sought 

these paths 
That range among the places of the 

past; 
And I will make defeat of Grief with such 
True fellowship of tears as shall disarm 
Her right hand of its scorpions ; nor in 

vain 
My prayers with thine shall batter at 

the gates 
Of Mercy, through all antagonisms of 

fate 
Forcing sharp inlet to her throne in 

Heaven. " 

Whereat Tannhauser, turning tearless 

eyes 
On Wolfram, murmured mournfully, "If 

tears 
Fiery as those from fallen seraphs dis- 
tilled, 
Or centuries of prayers for pardon sighed 
Sad, as of souls in purgatorial glooms. 
Might soften condemnation, or restore 
To her, whom most on earth I have of- 
fended. 
The holy freight of all her innocent hopes 
Wrecked in this ruined venture, I would 

weep 
Salt oceans from these eyes. But I no 

more 
May drain the deluge from my heart, no 

more 
On any breath of sigh or praj'er rebuild 
The rainbow of discovenanted Hope. 
Thou, therefore. Wolfram — for her face, 
when mine 



OE, THE BATTLE OF THE BARDS. 



295 



Is dark forever, thine eyes may still be- 
hold — 

Tell her, if thou unblamed may'st speak 
of one 

Signed cross by the curse of God and 
cancelled out, 

How, at the last, though in remorse of all 

That makes allegiance void and valueless. 

To me has come, with knowledge of my 
loss, 

Fealty to that pure passion, once be- 
trayed. 

Wherewith I loved, and love her." 

There his voice, 
Even as a wave that, touching on the 

shore 
To which it travelled, is shivered and 

dilFusSfl, 
Sank, scattered into spray of wasteful 

sighs. 
And back dissolved into the deeper grief. 

To whom. Wolfram, " answer by the 

faith 
In which mankind are kindred, art thou 

not 
From Rome, unhappiest ? " " From 

Rome ? ah me ! " 
He muttered, " Rome is far off, very far. 
And weary is the way ! " But undeterred 
Wolfram renewed, " And hast thou not 

beheld 
The face of Christ's High Vicar ? " And 

again, 
" Pass on," he muttered, " what is that 

to thee ? " 
Whereto, with sorrowful voice. Wolfram, 

" all. 
And all in all to me that love my friend ! " 
"My friend!", Tannhauser laughed a 

bitter laugh 
Then sadlier said, "What thou wouldst 

know, once known. 
Will cause thee to recall that wasted word 
And cancel all the kindness in thy 

thoughts ; 
Yet shalt thou learn mymisery, and learn 
The man so changed, whom once thou 

calledst ' friend,' 
That unto him the memory of himself 
Is as a stranger." Then, with eyes that 

swam 
True sorrow, Wolfram stretched his arms 

and sought 
To clasp Tannhauser to him : but the 

other 



Waved him away, and with a shout that 

spi'ang 
Fierce with self-scorn from misery's 

deepest depth, 
"Avaunt!" he cried, "the ground 

whereon I tread 
Is ground accurst ! 

" Yet stand not so far off 
But what thine ears, if yet they will, may 

take 
The tale thy lips from mine have sought 

to learn ; 
Then, sign thyself, and peaceful go thy 

ways." 
And Wolfram, for the grief that choked 

his voice. 
Could only murmur " Speak ! " But for 

a while 
Tannhauser to sad silence gave his heart ; 
Then fetched back some far thought, 

sighing, and said : — 

" Wolfram, by the love of lovelier days 
Believe I am not so far fallen away 
From all I was while we might yet be 

friends. 
But what these words, haply my last, 

are true : 
True as my heart's deep woe what time 

I felt 
Cold on my brow tears wept, and wept 

in vain. 
For me, among the scorn of altered 

friends, 
Parting that day for Rome. Remember 

this : 
That when, in the after years to which I 

pass 
A by- word, and a mockery, and no more. 
Thou, honored still by honorable men, 
Shalt hear my name dishonored, thou 

may'st say, 
' Greatly he grieved for that great sin he 

sinned.' 

" Ever, as up the windy Alpine way, 
We halting oft by cloudy convent doors. 
My fellow- pilgrims warmed themselves 

within, 
And ate and drank, and slept their sleep, 

all night, 
I, fasting, slept not ; but in ice and snow 
Wept, aye remembering her that wept 

for me, 
And loathed the sin within me. When 

at length 
Our way lay under garden terraces 



296 



TANNHAUSER; 



Strewn with their dropping blossoms, 
thick with scents, 

Among the towers and towns of Italy, 

Whose sumptuous airs along them, like 
the ghosts 

Of their old gods, went sighing, I nor 
looked 

Nor lingered, but with bandaged eyeballs 
prest, 

Impatient, to the city of the shrine 

Of my desired salvation. There by night 

"We entered. There, all night, forlorn I 
lay 

Bruised, broken, bleeding, all my gar- 
ments torn. 

And all my spirit stricken with remorse, 

Prostrate beneath the great cathedral 
stairs. 

So the dawn found me. From a hun- 
dred spires 

A hundred silvery chimes rang joy : but I 

Lay folded in the shadow of my shame, 

Darkening the daylight from me in the 
dust. 

Then came a sound of solemn music 
flowing 

To where I crouched ; voices and tram- 
pling feet ; 

And, girt by all his crimson cardinals, 

In all his pomp the sovran Pontiff stood 

Before me in the centre of my hopes ; 

Which trembled round him into glorious 
shapes. 

Golden, as clouds that ring the risen sun. 

And all the people, all the pilgrims, fell 

Low at his sacred feet, confessed their 
sins, 

And, pardoned, rose with psalms of jubi- 
lee 

And confident glad faces. 

"Then I sprang 

To where he paused above me ; with 
wild hands 

Clutched at the skirts I could not reach ; 
and sank 

Shiveringly back ; crying, ' holy, and 
high, 

And terrible, that hast the keys of 
heaven ! 

Thou that dost bind and dost unloose, 
from me. 

For Mary's sake, and the sweet saints', 
unbind 

The grievous burthen of the curse I 
bear. ' 

And when he q uestioned, and I told him 
aU 



The sin that smouldered in my blood, 

how bred. 
And all the strangeness of it, then his face 
Was as the Judgment Angel's ; and I hid 
My own ; and, hidden from his eyes, I 

heard : 

" 'Hast thou within the nets of Satan 

lain ? 
Hast thou thy soul to her perdition 

pledged ? 
Hast thou thy lip to Hell's Enchantress 

lent, 
To drain damnation from her reeking cup ? 
Then know that sooner from the withered 

staff 
That in my hand I hold green leaves 

shall spring, 
Than from the brand in hell-fire scorched 

rebloom 
The blossoms of salvation.' 

"The voice ceased, 
And, with it all things from my sense. 

I waked 
I know not when, but all the place was 

dark : 
Above me, and about me, and within 
Darkness : and from that hour by moon 

or sun 
Darkness unutterable as of death 
Where'er I walk. But death himself is 

near ! 
0, might I once more see her, unseen ; 

unheard. 
Hear her once more ; or know that she 

forgives 
Whom Heaven forgives not, nor his own 

lost peace ; 
I think that even among the nether fires 
And those dark fields of Doom to which 

I pass, 
Some blessing yet would haunt me." 

Sorrowfully 
He rose among the tumbled rocks and 

leaned 
Against the dark. As one that many a 

year, 
Sundered by savage seas unsociable 
From kin and country, in a desert isle 
Dwelling till half dishumanized, beholds 
Haply, one eve, a far-off sail go by. 
That brings old thoughts of home across 

his heart ; 
And still the man who thinks — "They 

are all gone, 
Or changed, that loved me once, and I 

myself 



OE, THE BATTLE OF THE BARDS. 



297 



No more the same " — watches the dwin- 
dling speck 

With weary eyes, nor shouts, nor waves 
a hand ; 

But after, when the night is left alone, 

A sadness falls upon him, and he feels 

More solitary in his solitudes, 

And tears come starting fast ; so, tear- 
ful, stood 

Tannhauser, whilst his melancholy 
thoughts. 

From following up far off a waning hope. 

Back to himself came, one by one, more 
sad 

Because of sadness troubled. 

Yet not long 

He rested thus ; but murmured, " Now, 
farevaell : 

I go to hide me darkly in the groves 

That she was wont to haunt ; where 
some sweet chance 

Haply may yield me sight of her, and I 

May stoop, she passed away, to kiss the 
ground 

Made sacred by her passage ere I die." 

But him departing Wolfram held, 
"Vain ! vain ! 

Thy footstep sways with fever, and thy 
mind 

Wavers within thy restless eyes. Lie 
here, 

unrejected, in my arms, and rest ! " 

Now o'er the cumbrous hills began to 
creep 

A thin and watery light : a whisper went 

Vague through the vast and dusky- vol- 
umed woods, 

And, uncompanioned, from a drowsy copse 

Hard by a solitary chirp came cold, 

While, spent with inmost trouble, Tann- 
hauser leaned 

His wan cheek pillowed upon Wol- 
fram's breast, 

Calm, as in death, with placid lids down 
locked. 

And Wolfram prayed within his heart, 
"Ah, God! 

Let him not die, not yet, not thus, with 
all 

The sin upon his spirit ! " But while 
he prayed 

Tannhauser raised delirious looks, and 
sighed, 

"Hearest thou not the' happy songs 
they sing me ? 

Seest thou not the lovely floating fonns ? 



fair, and fairer far than fancy fashioned ! 
sweet the sweetness of the songs they 

sing ! 
For thee, . . . they sing . . . the goddess 

waitft: for thee 
With braided blooms the balmy couch i 

strewn, 
And loosed for thee . . . they sing . . . 

the golden zone. 
Fragrant for thee the lighted spices fum^ 
With streaming incense sweet, and sweet 

for thee 
The scattered rose, the myrtle crown, the 

cup, 
The ne.ctar-cup for thee I . . . they sing. 

Return, 
Though late, too long desired, ... I hear 

them sing. 
Delay no more delights too long delayed : 
Turn to thy rest ; . . . they sing . . . 

the married doves 
Murmur ; the Fays soft-sparkling tapers 

tend ; 
The odors burn the purple bowers among ; 
And Love for thee, and Beauty, waits J 

. . . they sing." 

"Ah me ! ah madman ! " Wolfram cried, 

"yet cram 
Thy cheated ears, nor chase with credu- 
lous heart 
The fair dissembling of that dream. 

For thee 
Not roses now, but thorns ; nor myrtle 

wreath. 
But cypress rather and the graveyard 

flower 
Befitting saddest brows ; nor nectar 

poured, 
But prayers and tears ! For thee in 

yonder skies 
An Angel strives with Sin and Death ; 

for thee 
Yet pleads a spirit piirer than thine own : 
For she is gone ! gone to the breast of 

God! 
Thy Guardian Angel, while she walked 

the earth, 
Thine intercession ary Saint while now 
For thee she sues about the Throne ' 1 ^ 

Thrones, 
Beyond the stars, our star, Elizabeth !' 

Then Wolfram felt the shattered frame 

that leaned 
Across his breast with sudden spasms 

convulsed. 



298 



TANNHAUSER; 



"Dead! is she dead?" Tannhauser 

murmured, "dead! 
aone to the grave, so young ! murdered 

— by me ! 
Dead — and by my great sin ! "Wol- 
fram, turn 
Thy face from mine. I am a dying 

man I " 
And Wolfram answered, "Dying? ah, 

not thus ! 
Yet make one sign thou dost repent the 

past, 
One word, but one 1 to say thou hast 

abhorred 
That false she-devil that, with her 

damned charms. 
Hath wrought this ruin ; and I, though 

all the world 
Eoar out against thee, ay ! though fiends 

of hell 
Howl from the deeps, yet I, thy friend, 

even yet 
Will cry them ' Peace ! ' and trust the 

hope I hold 
Against all desperate odds, and deem 

thee saved." 
Whereto Tannhauser, speaking faintly, 

"Friend, 
The liend that haunts in ruins through 

my heart 
Will wander sometimes. In the nets I 

trip, 
When most I fret the meshes. These 

spent shafts 
Are of a sickly brain that shoots awry, 
Aiming at something better. Bear with 

me. 
I die : I pass I know not whither : yet 

know 
That I die penitent. Wolfram, pray. 
Pray for my soul ! I cannot pray myself. 
I dare not hope : and yet I would not die 
Without a hope, if any hoj)e, tho\igh faint 
And far beyond this darkness, yet may 

dwell 
In the dear death of Him that died for 

all." 
He whispering thus ; far in the Aurorean 

East 
The niddy sun, uprising, sharply smote 
A golden finger on the airy harps 
By Morning hung within her leafy 

bowers ; 
And all about the budded dells, and woods 
With sparkling-tasselled tops, from birds 

and brooks 
A hundred hallelujahs hailed the light. 



The whitethorn glistened from the wak- 
ening glen : 

O'er golden gravel danced the dawning 
rills : 

All the delighted leaves by copse and 



Gambolled ; and breezy bleatings came 

from flocks 
Far off in pleasant pastures fed with dew. 

But whilst, unconscious of the silent 
change 

Thus stolen around him, o'er the dying 
bard 

Hung Wolfram, on the breeze there 
came a sound 

Of mourning moving down the narrow 
glen ; 

And, looking up, he suddenly was 'ware 

Of four white maidens, moving in the van 

Of four black monks who bore upon her 
bier 

The flower-strewn corpse of young Eliza- 
beth. 

And after these, from all the castled 
hills, 

A multitude of lieges and of lords ; 

A multitude of men-at-arms, with all 

Their morions hung with mourning ; 
and in midst 

His worn cheek channelled with unwont- 
ed tears. 

The Landgrave, weeping for Elizabeth. 

These, as the sad procession nearer 
wound, 

And nearer, trampling bare the feathery 
weed 

To where Sir Wolfram rested o'er his 
friend, 

Tannhauser caught upon his dying gaze ; 

And caught, perchance, upon the in- 
ward eye. 

Far, far beyond the corpse, the bier, and 
far 

Beyond the widening circle of the sun. 

Some sequel of that vision Wolfram saw ; 

The crowned Spirit by the Jasper Gates ; 

The four white Angels o'er the walls of 
Heaven, 

The shores where, tideless, sleep the seas 
of Time 

Soft by the City of the Saints of God. 

Forth, with the strength that lastly 

comes to break 
All bonds, from Wolfram's folding arm 

he leapt, 



OR, THE BATTLE OF THE BARDS. 



299 



Clambered the pebHy path, and, groan- 
ing, fell 
Flat on the bier of love — his bourn at 

last ! 
Then, even then, while question question 

chased 
About the ruffled circle of that grief, 
And all was hubbub by the bier, a noise 
Of shouts and hymns brake in across the 

Tiills, 
That now o'erflowed with hurrying feet ; 

and came. 
Dashed to the hip with travel, and dewed 

with haste, 
A flying post, and in his hand he bore 
A withered staff o'erflourished with green 

leaves ; 
Who, — followed by a crowd of youth 

and eld. 
That sang to stun with sound the lark 

in heaven, 
*' A miracle ! a miracle from Rome ! 
Glory to God that makes the bai-e bough 

green ! " — 
Sprang in the midst, and, hot for an- 
swer, asked 
News of the Knight Tannhauser. 

Then a monk 
Of those that, stoled in sable, bore the 

bier 
Pointing, with sorrowful hand, " Behold 

the man ! " 
But straight the other, "Glory be to God ! 
This from the Vicar of the fold of Christ : 
The withered staff hath flourished into 

leaves. 
The brand shall bloom, though burned 

with fire, and thou 
— Thy soul from sin be saved ! " To 

whom, with tears 
That flashed from lowering lids, Wolfram 

replied : 
"To him a swifter message, from a source 
Mightier than whence thou comest, hath 

been vouchsafed. 
See these stark hands, blind eyes, and 

bloodless lips. 
This shattered remnant of a once fair form. 
Late home of desolation, now the husk 
And ruined chrysalis of a regal spirit 
That up to heaven hath parted on the 

wing ! 
But thou, to Rome returning with hot 



Tell the high Vicar of the Fold of Christ 
How that lost sheep his rescuing hand 
would reach, 



Although by thee unfound, is found in- 
deed. 

And in the Shepherd's bosom lies at 
peace." 

And they that heard him lifted up the 

voice 
And wept. But they that stood about 

the hills 
Far off, not knowing, ceased not to cry 

out, 
" Glory to God that makes the bare 

bough green ! " 
Till Echo, from the inmost heart of all 
That mellowing morn blown open like a 

rose 
To round and ripen to the perfect noon, 
Resounded, " Glory ! glory ! " and the 

rocks 
From glen to glen rang, " Glory unto 

God ! " 

And so those twain, severed by Life and 

Sin, 
By Love and Death united, in one grave 
Slept. But Sir Wolfram passed into the 

wilds : 
There, with long labor of his hands, he 

hewed 
A hermitage from out the hollow rock, 
Wherein he dwelt, a solitary man. 
There, many a year, at nightfall or at 

dawn, 
The pilgrim paused, nor ever paused in 

vain. 
For words of cheer along his weary way. 
But once, upon a windy 'night, men 

heard 
A noise of rustling wings, and at the 

dawn 
They found the heraiit parted to his 

peace. 
The place is yet. The youngest pilgrim 

knows. 
And loves it. Three gray rocks ; and, 

over these, 
A mountain ash that, mourning, bead ' 

by bead. 
Drops her red rosary on a ruined cell. 

So sang the Saxon Bard. And when h^ 

ceased, 
The women's cheeks were wet with tears • 

but all 
The broad-blown Barons roared applaus*!, 

and flowed 
The jostling tankards prodigal of wine. 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



PERSONS OF THE DRAMA. 



Agamemnon. 

jEgisthus. 

Orestes. 

Phocian. 

Herald. 



Clytemnestea. 
Electra. 
Cassandra. 
Chorus. 



Scene. — Before the Palace of Agamemnon in Argos. 

shield of Agamemnon, on the wall. 
Time. — Mm'ning. The action continues till Sunset. 



Trophies, amongst which the 



I. CLYTEMNESTRA. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Morning at last ! at last the lingering 

day 
Creeps o'er the dewy side of yon dark 

world. 
dawning light already on the hills 1 
universal earth, and air, and thou, 
First freshness of the east, which art a 

breath 
Breathed from the rapture of the gods, 

who bless 
Almost all other prayers on earth but 

mine ! 
Wherefore to me is solacing sleep denied ? 
And honorable rest, the right of all ? 
So that no medicine of the slumbrous 

shell, 
Brimmed with divinest draughts of 

melody, 
Nor sUence under dreamful canopies. 
Nor purple cushions of the lofty couch 
May lull this fever for a little while. 
Wherefore to me, — to me, of all man- 
kind. 
This retribution for a deed undone ? 
For many men outlive their sum of 

crimes. 
And eat, and drink, and lift up thankful 

hands. 
And take their rest securely in the dark. 
Am I not innocent, — or more than 

these ? 
There is no blot of murder on my brow, 
Nor any taint of blood upon my robe. 



— It is the thought ! it is the thought ! 

. . . and men 
Judge us by acts ! ... as though one 

thunder-clap 
Let all Olympus out. Unquiet heart, 
111 fares it with thee since, ten sad years 

past, 
In one wild hour of unacquainted joy, 
Thou didst set wide thy lonely bridal 

doors 
For a forbidden guest to enter in ! 
Last night, methought pale Helen, with 

a frown, 
Swept by me, murmuring, "I — such 

as thou — 
A Queen in Greece — weak-hearted, (woe 

is me !) 
Allured by love — did, iia an evil hour, 
Fall off from duty. Sorrow came. Be- 
ware ! " 
And then, in sleep, there passed a bale- 
ful band, — 
The ghosts of all the slaughtered under 

Troy, 
From this side Styx, who cried, " For 

such a crime 
We fell from our fair palaces on earth. 
And wander, starless, here. For such a 

crime 
A thousand ships were launched, and 

tumbled down 
The topless towers of Ilion, though they 

rose 
To magic music, in the time of Gods ! " 
With such fierce thoughts forevermore 

at war, 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



301 



Vext not alone by hankering wild regrets, 
But fears, yet worse, of that which soon 

must come, 
My heart waits armed, and from the 

citadel 
Of its high sorrow, sees far off dark 

shapes. 
And hears the footsteps of Necessity 
Tread near, and nearer, hand in hand 

with Woe. 
Last night the flaming Herald warning 

urged 
Up all the hills, — small time to pause 

and plan ! 
Counsel is weak : and much remains to 

do, 
That Agamemnon, and, if else remain 
Of that enduring band who sailed for 

Tro"^ 
Ten years ago (and some sailed Lethe- 
ward), 
Find us not unprepared for their return. 

But — hark ! I hear the tread of nimble 

feet 
That sound this way. The rising town 

is poured 
About the festive altars of the Gods, 
And from the heart of the great Agora, 
Lets out its gladness for this last night's 

news. 
— Ah, so it is ! Insidious, sly Eeport, 
Sounding oblique, like Loxian oracles. 
Tells double-tongued (and with the self- 
same voice !) 
To some new gladness, new despair to 
some. 



IL CHORUS AND CLYTEMNES- 
TRA. 

CHORUS. 

dearest Lady, daughter of Tyndarus ! 
With piirple flowers we come, and offer- 
ings — 
Oil, and wine ; and cakes of honey, 
Soothing, unadulterate ; tapestries 
Woven by white Argive maidens, 
God-descended (woven only 
For the homeward feet of Heroes) 
To celebrate this glad intelligence 
Which last night the fiery courier 
Brought us, posting up from Ilion, 
Wheeled above the dusky circle 
Of the hills from lighted Ida. 
For now (Troy lying extinguisht 



Underneath a mighty Woe) 

Our King and chief of men, 

Agamemnon, returning 

(And with him the hope of Argos), 

Shall worship at the Tutelary Altars 

Of their dear native land : 

In the fane of ancient Here, 

Or the great Lycaean God ; 

Immortally crowned with reverend honor ! 

But tell us wherefore, godlike woman, 

Having a lofty trouble in your eye, 

You walk alone with loosened tresses ? 

CLYTEMNESTEA. 

Shall the ship toss, and yet the helm 

not heave ? 
Shall they drowse sitting at the lower 

oars. 
When those that hold the middle benches 

wake ? 
He that is yet sole eye of all our state 
Shining not here, shall ours be shut in 

dreams ? 
But haply you (thrice happy !) prove 

not this. 
The curse of Queens, and worse than 

widowed wives — 
To wake, and hear, all night, the wan- 
dering gnat 
Sing through the silent chambers, while 

Alarm, 
In place of Slumber, by the haunted 

couch 
Stands sentinel ; or when from coast to 

coast 
Wails the night-wandering wind, or 

when o'er heaven 
Bootes hath unleashed his fiery hounds, 
And Night her glittering camps hath 

set, and lit 
Her watch-fires through the silence of 

the skies, 
— To count ill chances in the dark, and 

feel 
Deserted pillows wet with tears, not 

kisses, 
Where kisses once fell. 

But now Expectation 
Stirs up such restless motions of the 

blood 
As suffer not my lids to harbor sleep. 
Wherefore, beloved companions, 
I wake betimes, and wander up and down, 
Looking toward the distant hill-tops, 
From whence shall issue fair fulfilment 
Of all our ten-years' hoping. For, be- 
hold ! 



302 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



Troy being captived, we shall see once 
more 

Those whom we loved in days of old. 

Yet some will come not from the Phry- 
gian shore, 

But there lie weltering to the surf and 
wind ; 

Exiled from day, in darkness blind, 

Or having crost unhappy Styx. 

And some who left us full of vigorous 
youth 

Shall greet us now gray-headed men. 

But if our eyes behold again 

Our long-expected chief, in truth, 

Fortune for us hath thrown the Treble 
Six. 

CHORUS. 

By us, indeed, these things are also 

wisht. 
Wherefore, if now to this great son of 

Atreus 
(Having survived the woful walls of 

Troy), 
With us, once more, the Gods permit to 

stand 
A glad man by the pillars of his hearth, 
Let his dear life henceforth be such 

wherein 
The Third Libation often shall be poured. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

And let his place be numbered with the 

Gods, 
WTio overlook the world's eternal walls, 
Out of all reach of sad calamities. 

CHORUS 

It is not well, I think, that men should 

set 
Too near the Gods any of mortal kind : 
But brave men are as Gods upon the 

earth. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

And whom Death daunts not, these are 
truly brave. 

CHORUS. 

But more than all I reckon that man 

blest, 
Who, having sought Death nobly, finds 

it not. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Except he find it where he does not seek. 



CHORUS. 

You speak in riddles. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

For so Wisdom speaks. 
But now do you with garlands wreathe 

the altars. 
While I, within, the House prepare. 
That so our King, at his returning, 
With his golden armament. 
Find us not unaware 
Of the greatness of the event. 



Soon shall we see the faces that we loved. 
Brother once more clasping brother, 
As in the unforgotten days : 
And heroes, meeting one another 
(Men by glorious toils approved) 
Where once they roved, 
Shall rove again the old familiar ways. 
And they that from the distance come 
Shall feed their hearts with tales of 

home ; 
And tell the famous story of the war, 
Rumored sometime from afar. 
Now shall these again behold 
The ancient Argos ; and the grove 
Long since trod 

By the frenzied child of Inachus ; 
And the Forum, famed of old. 
Of the wolf-destroying God ; 
And the opulent Mycenae, 
Home of the Pelopidse, 
While they rove Avith those they love, 
Holding pleasant talk with us. 
how gloriousl}'- they went, 
That avenging armament ! 
As though Olympus in her womb 
No longer did entomb 
The greatness of a bygone world — 
Gods and godlike men — i 

But cast them forth again 
To frighten Troy : such storm was hurled 
On her devoted towers 
By the retributive Deity, 
Whosoe'er he be 
Of the Immortal Powers — 
Or maddening Pan, if he chastise 
His Shepherd's Phrygian treacheries ; 
Or vengeful Loxias ; or Zeus, 
Angered for the shame and abuse 
Of a great man's hospitality. 

As wide as is Olympus' span 
Is the power of the high Gods ; 



CLYTEMNESTEA. 



303 



Who, in their golden blest abodes 
See all things, looking from the sky ; 
And Heaven is hard to pacify 
For the wickedness of man. 
My heart is filled with vague forebodings. 
And opprest by unknown terrors 
Lest, in the light of so much gladness, 
Eise the shadow of ancient wrong. 
Daemon of the double lineage 
Of Tantalus ; and the Pleisthenidas, 
Inexorable in thy mood, 
On the venerable threshold 
Of the ancient House of Pelops 
Surely is enougli of blood ! 
Wherefore does my heart misgive me ? 
Wherefore comes this doubt to grieve me ? 
O, may no Divine Envy 
Follow home the Argive army. 
Being vext^r things ill-done 
In wilful ])ride of stubborn war, 
Long since, in the distant lands ! 
May no Immortal wrath pursue 
Our dear King, the Light of Argos, 
For the unhappy sacritice 
Of a daughter ; working evil 
In the dark heart of a woman ; 
Or some household treachery, 
And a curse from kindred hands ! 



III. CLYTEMNESTEA. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

[Re-entering from the house. 

To-morrow ... ay, what if to-day ? . . . 

Well — then ? 
Why, if those tongues of flame, with 

which last night 
The land was eloquent, spoke certain 

truth. 
By this perchance through gi-een Saronic 

rocks 
Those black ships glide . . . perchance .' . . 

well, what 's to fear ? 
'T were well to dare the worst — to know 

the end — 
Die soon, or live secure. What 's left to 

add 
To years of nights like those which I 

have known ? 
Shall I shrink now to meet one little hour 
Which I have dared to contemplate for 

years ? 
By all the Gods, not so ! The end 

crowns all, 
Which if we fail to seize, that 'a also lost 



Which went before ; as who would lead 
a host 

Through desolate dry places, yet return 

In sight of kingdoms, when the Gods are 
roused 

To mark the issue ? . . . And yet, j'et — 

I tliink 

Three nights ago there must have been 
sea-storms. 

The wind was wild among the Palace 
towers : 

Far off upon the hideous Element 

I know it huddled up the petulant waves. 

Whose shapeless and bewildering preci- 
pices 

Led to the belly of Orcus ... 0, to slip 

Into dark Lethe from a dizzy plank. 

When even the Gods are reeling on the 
poop ! 

To drown at night, and have no sepul- 
chre ! — 

That were too horrible ! . . . yet it may 
be 

Some easy chance, that comes with little 
pain. 

Might rid me of the haunting of those 
eyes. 

And these wild thoughts ... To know 
he roved among 

His old companions in the Happy Fields, 

And ranged with heroes — I still inno- 
cent ! 

Sleep would be natural then. 

Yet will the old time 

Never return ! never those peaceful 
hours ! 

Never that careless heart ! and never- 
more. 

Ah, nevermore that laughter without 
pain ! 

But I, that languish for repose, must 
fly it, 

Nor, save in daring, doing, taste of rest. 

0, to have lost all these ! To have bar- 
tered calm. 

And all the irrevocable wealth of youth, 

And gained . . . what ? But this change 
had surely come, 

Even were all things other than they are. 

I blame myself o'ermuch, who should 
blame time, 

And life's inevitable loss, and fate. 

And days grown lovelier in the retro- 
spect. 

We change : wherefore look back ? The 
path to safety 

Lies forward . . . forwai'd ever. 



304 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



[In passing toward the house she recognizes the 
shield of Agamemno'ii, and pauses before it. 

Ha ! old shield, 
Hide up for shame that honest face of 

thine. 
Stare not so bluntly at us ... 0, this 

man ! 
Why sticks the thought of him so in my 

heart? 
If I had loved him once — if for one 

hour — 
Then were there treason in this falling 

off. 
But never did I feel this wretched heart 
Until it leaped beneath jEgisthus' eyes. 
Who could have so forecounted all from 

first? 
From that flusht moment when his hand 

in mine 
Eested a thought too long, a touch too 

kind. 
To leave its pulse unwarmed . . . but I 

remember 
I dreamed sweet dreams that night, and 

slept till dawn, 
And woke with fiutterings of a happy 

thought, 
And felt, not worse, but better . . . and 

now . . . now ? 
When first a strange and novel tenderness 
Quivered in these salt eyes, had one said 

then 
"A bead of dew may drag a deluge 

down " : — 
In that first pensive pause, through 

which I watched 
Unwonted sadness on jEgisthus' brows. 
Had some one whispered, "Ay, the 

summer-cloud 
Comes first : the tempest follows." — 

Well, what 's past 
Is past. Perchance the worst 's to follow 

yet. 
How thou art hackt, and hewn, and 

bruised, old shield ! 
Was the whole edge of the war against 

one man ? 
But one thrust more upon this dexter 

ridge 
Had quite cut through the double inmost 

hide. 
He must have stood to it well ! 0, he 

was cast 
I' the mould of Titans : a magnificent 

man. 
With head and shoulders like a God's. 

He seemed 



Too brimful of this merry vigorous life 

To spill it all out at one stab o' the sword. 

Yet that had helped much ill ... 
Destiny 

Makes cowards or makes culprits of us 
all! 

Ah, had some Trojan weapon . . . Fool ! 
fool! fool! 

Surely sometimes the unseen Eumenides 

Do prompt our musing moods with 
wicked hints. 

And lash us for our crimes ere we com- 
mit them. 

Here, round this silver boss, he cut my 
name. 

Once — long ago : he cut it as he lay 

Tired out with brawling pastimes — 
prone — his limbs 

At length difi'used — his head droopt in 
my lap — 

His spear flung by : Electra by the hearth 

Sat with the young Orestes on her knee ; 

While he, with an old broken sword, 
hacked out 

These crooked characters, and laughed 
to see 

(Sprawled from the unused strength of 
his large hands) 

The marks make Clytemnestra. 

How he laughed ! 

iEgisthus' hands are smaller. 

Yet I know 

That matrons envied me my husband's 
strength. 

And I remember when he strode among 

The Argive crowd he topped them by a 
head. 

And tall men stood wide-eyed to look at 
him. 

Where his great plumes went tossing up 
and down 

The brazen prores drawn out upon the 
sand. 

War on his front was gi-aved, as on thy 
disk, 

Shield ! which he left to keep his mem- 
ory 

Grand in men's mouths : that some re- 
vered old man. 

Winning to this the eyes of our hot 
youth, 

Might say, '"T was here, and here — 
this dent, and that — 

On such, and such a field (which we re- 
member) 

That Agamemnon, in the great old time, 

Held up the battle." 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



305 



Now lie there, and rust ! 
Thy uses all have end. Thy master's 

home 
Should harbor none but friends. 

tri}ile brass, 
Iron, and oak ! the blows of blundering 

men 
Clang idly on you : what fool's strength 

is yours ! 
For, surely, not the adamantine tunic 
Of Ares, nor whole shells of blazing 

plates, 
Nor ashen spear, nor all the cumbrous 

coil 
Of seven bulls' hides may guard the 

strongest king 
From one defenceless woman's quiet hate. 

What nofse was that ? Where can 

-lEgisthus be ? 
.^gisthus ! — my ^gisthus ! . . . There 

again ! 
Louder, and longer — from the Agora — 
A might}'^ shout : and now I see i' the 

air 
A rolling dust the wind blows near. 

iEgisthus ! 

much I fear . . . this wil4-willed race 

of ours 

Doth ever, like a young unbroken colt. 

Chafe at the straightened "bridle of our 
state — 

If they should find him lone, irresolute. 

As is his wont ... I know he lacks the 
eye 

And forehead wherewith crowned Ca- 
pacity 

Awes rash Eebellion back. 

Again that shout ! 

Gods keep ^gisthus safe ! myself will 
front 

This novel storm. How my heart leaps 
to danger ! 

1 have been so long a pilot on rough 

seas. 
And almost rudderless ! 

yet 't is much 
To feel a power, self-centred, self-assured. 
Bridling a glorious danger ! as when one 
That knows the nature of the elements 
Guides some frail plank with sublime 

skill that wins 
Progress from all obstruction ; and, erect. 
Looks bold and free down all the drip- 
ping stars. 
Hearing the hungiy storm boom baffled, 

by. 

20 



^gisthus ! . . . hark ! . . . iEgisthus ! . . . 

there . . . jEgisthus ! 
I would to all the Gods 1 knew him safe ! 
Who comes this way, guiiling his racing 

feet 
Safe to us, like a nimble charioteer ? 



IV. CLYTEMNESTRA. HERALD. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Now, gloom-bird ! are there prodigies 

about ? 
What new ill-thing sent thee before ? 



HERALD. 



Queen — 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Speak, if thou hast a voice ! I listen. 



Queen - 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



Hath an ox trodden on th}'^ tongue ? . . . 
Speak then ! 

HERALD. 

Queen (for haste hath caught away my 

breath). 
The King is coming. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Say again — the King 
Is coming — 

HERALD. 

Even now, the broad sea-fields 
Grow white with flocks of sails, and 

toward the west 
The sloped horizon teems with rising 

beaks. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

The people know this ? 

HERALD. 

Heard you not the noise ? 
For soon as this winged news had toucht 

the gate 
The whole land shouted in the sun. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

So soon I 
The thought 's outsped by the reality. 
And halts agape . . . the King — 



306 



CLYTEMNESTEA. 



HERALD. 

How she is moved. 
A noble woman ! 

CLYTEMNESTEA. 

Wherefore heat so fast, 
Thou foolish heart ? 'tis not thy master — 

HERALD. 

Truly 
She looks all over Agamemnon's mate. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Destiny, Destiny ! The deed 's half done. 

HERALD. 

She will not speak, save by that brood- 
ing eye 

Whose light is language. Some great 
thought, I see. 

Mounts up the royal chambers of her 
blood. 

As a king mounts his palace ; holds high 
pomp 

In her Olympian bosom ; gains her face, 

Possesses all her noble glowing cheek 

With sudden state ; and gathers grandly 
up 

Its slow majestic meanings in her eyes ! 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 
So quick this sudden joy hath taken us, 
I scarce can realize the sum of it. 
You say the King comes here, — the 

King, my husband, 
Whom we have waited for ten years, — 

joy ! 
Pardon our seeming roughness at the 

first. 
Hope, that will often fawn upon despair 
And flatter desperate chances, when* the 

event 
Falls at our feet, soon takes a querulous 

tone. 
And jealous of that perfect joy she 

guards 
(Lest the ambrosial fruit by some rude 

hand 
Be stol'n away from her, and never 

tasted). 
Barks like a lean watch-dog at all who 

come. 
But now do you, with what good speed 

you may, 
Make known this glad intelligence to 

alh 



Ourselves, within, as best befits a wife 

And woman, will prepare my husband's 
house. 

Also, I pra}' you, summon to our side 

Our cousin, JEgisthus. We would speak 
with him. 

We would that our own lips should be 
the hrst 

To break these tidings to him ; so ob- 
taining 

New joy by sharing his. And, for your- 
self. 

Receive our gratitude. For this great 
news 

Henceforth you hold our royal love in fee. 

Our fairest fortunes from this day I date, 

And to the House of Tantalus new honor. 

HERALD. 

She *s gone ! With what a majesty she 

filled 
The whole of space ! The statues of the 

Gods 
Are not so godlike. She has Here's eyes, 
And looks immortal ! 



V. CLYTEMNESTRA. CHORUS. 

CLYTEMNESTRA {as she ascends the steps oftU 
Palace). 

So . . . while on the verge 
Of some wild purpose we hang dizzily, 
Weighing the danger of the leap below 
Against the danger of retreating steps. 
Upon a sudden, some forecast event. 
Issuing full-armed from Councils of the 

Gods, 
Strides to us, plucks us by the hair, and 

hurls 
Headlong pale conscience, to the abyss 

of crime. 
Well — I shrink not. 'T is but a leap 

in life. 
There 's fate in this. Why is he here so 

soon ? 
The sight of whose abhorred eyes will 

add 
Whatever lacks of strength to this re- 
solve. 
Away with shame ! I have had enough 

of it. 
What 's here for shame ? . . . the weak 

against the strong ? 
And if the weak be victor ? . . . what of 

that? 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



307 



Tush ! . . . there, — my soul is set to it. 

"What need 
Of argument to justify an act 
Necessity compels, and must absolve ? 
I have been at play with scruples — like 

a girl. 
Now they are all flung by. I have 

talked with Crime 
Too long to play the prude. These 

thoughts have been 
Wild guests by night. Now I shall 

dare to do 
That which I did not dare to think . . . 

0, now 
I know myself ! Crime 's easier than 

we dream. 



Upon the everlasting hills 
Throned Justice works, and waits. 
Between the shooting of a star, 
Tliat falls unseen on summer nights 
Out of the bosom of the dark, 
And the magnificent march of War, 
Rolled from angry lands afar 
Round some doomed city-gates. 
Nothing is to her unknown ; 

Nothing unseen. 

Upon her hills she sits alone. 

And in the balance of Eternity 

Poises against the What-has-been 

The weight of What-shall-be. 

She sums the account of human ills. 

The great world's hoarded wrongs and 

rights 
Are in her treasures. She will mark, 
With inward-searching eyes sublime. 
The frauds of Time. 
The empty future years she fills 
Out of the past. All human wills 
Sway to her on her reachless heights. 

Wisdom she teaches men, with tears, 
In the toilful school of years : 
Climbing from event to event. 
And, being patient, is content 
To stretch her sightless arms about, 
And find some human instrument, 
From many sorrows to work out 
Her doubtful, far accomplishment. 

She the two Atridse sent 

Upon Uion : being intent 

The heapt-np wrath of Heaven to move 

Against the faithless Phrygian crime. 

Them the Thunder-bird of Jove, 



Swooping sudden from above. 
Summoned to fates sublime. 

She, being injured, for the sake 
Of her, the often-wedded wife, 
(Too loved, and too adoring ! ) 
Many a brazen band did break 
In many a breathless battle-strife ; 
Many a noble life did take ; 
Many a headlong agony. 
Frenzied shout, and frantic cry. 
For Greek and Trojan storing. 
When, the spear in the onset being 

shivered. 
The reeling ranks were rolled together 
Like mad waves mingling in windy 

weather, 
Dasht fearfully over and over each other. 
And the plumes of Princes were tossed 

and thrust, 
And dragged about in the shameful 

dust ; 
And the painful, panting breath 
Came and went in the tug of death : 
And the sinews were loosened, and the 

strong knees stricken : 
And the eyes began to darken and 

thicken : 
And the arm of the mighty and terrible 

quivered. 

Love ! Love ! Love ! How terrible art 

thou ! 
How terrible ! 
0, what hast thou to do 
With men of mortal years. 
Who toil below. 
And have enough of griefs for tears to 

flow? 
0, range in higher spheres ! 
Hast thou, hast thou, no diviner hues 
To paint thy wings, but must transfuse 
An Iris-light from tears ? 
For human hearts are all too weak to 

hold thee. 
And how, O Ijove, shall human arms in- 

fold thee ? 
There is a seal of sorrow on thy brow. 
There is a deadly fire in thy breath. 
With life thou lurest, yet thou givest 

death. 
Love, the Gods are weak by reason of 

thee ; 
And many wars have been upon the 

earth. 
Thou art the sweetest source of saltest 



308 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



Thy Hest to-days "bring snch unMest to- 
morrows ; 

Thy softest hope makes saddest memory. 

Thou hadst destruction in thee from the 
birth ; 

Incomprehensible ! 

Love, thy brightest bridal garments 
Are poisoned, like that robe of agonies 
"Which Deianira wove for Herciiles, 
And, being put on, turn presently to 
cerements ! 

Thou art unconquered in the fight. 

Thou raugest over land and sea. 

O let the foolish nations be ! 

Keep thy divine desire 

To Upheave mountains or to kindle 

fire 
From the frore frost, and set the world 

alight. 
Why make thy red couch in the damask 

cheek ? 
Or light thy torch at languid eyes ? 
Or lie entangled in soft sighs 
On pensive hps that will not speak ? 
To sow the seeds of evil things 
In the hearts of headstrong kings ? 
Preparing many a kindred strife 
For the fearful future hour ? 
leave the wretched race of man. 
Whose days are but the dying seasons' 

span ; 
Vex not his painful life ! 
Make thy immortal sport 
In Heaven's high court, 
And cope with Gods that are of equal 

power. 



VI. ELECTRA. CHORUS, 

TEMNESTRA. 



CLY- 



ELECg-RA. 

Now is at hand the hour of retribution. 
For my father, at last returning, 
In great power, being greatly injured, 
Will destroy the base adulterer, 
And efface the shameful Past. 



child of the Godlike Agamemnon ! 
Leave vengeance to the power of Heaven ; 
Nor forestall with impious footsteps 
The brazen tread of black Erinnys. 



ELECTRA. 

Is it, besotted with the adulterous sin, 
Or, as with flattery pleasing present 

power. 
Or, being intimidate, you speak these 

words ? 

CHORUS. 

Nay, but desiring justice, like yourself. 

ELECTRA. 

Yet Justice ofttimes uses mortal means. 

CHORUS. 

But flings aside her tools when work is 
done. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

dearest fiiends, inform me, went this 

way 
^gisthus ? 

CHORUS. 

Even now, hurrying hitherward 

1 see him walk, with irritated eyes. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

A reed may show which way the tem- 
pest blows. 

That face is pale, — those brows are dark 
... ah ! 



VIL ^GISTHUS. CLYTEMNES- 
TRA. 

^GISTHUS, 

Agamemnon — 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

My husband . . . well ? 

^GISTHUS. 

(Whom may the great Gods curse !) 
Is scarce an hour hence. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Then that hour 's yet saved 
From sorrow. Smile, ^gisthus — 

iEGISTHUS. 

Hear me speak. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Not as your later wont has been to 
smile — 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



309 



Quick, fierce, as though you scarce could 

hurry out 
The wild thing fast enough ; for smil- 

ing's sake, 
As if to show you could smile, though 

in fear 
Of what might follow, — hut as first 

you smiled 
Years, years ago, when some slow loving 

thought 
Stole down your face, and settled on your 

lips. 
As though a sunheam halted on a rose. 
And mixed with fragrance, light. Can 

you smile still 
Just so, ^gisthus ? 

iEGISTHtrS. 

• These are idle words. 

And like the wanderings of some fevered 

brain : 
Extravagant phrases, void of import, 

wild. 

CLYTEMNESTEA. 

Ah, no ! you cannot smile so, more. 
Nor I ! 

^GISTHUS. 

Hark ! in an hour the King — 

CLTTEMNESTRA. 

Hush ! listen now, — 
I hear, far down yon vale, a shepherd 

piping 
Hard by his milk-white flock. The 

lazy things ! 
How quietly they sleep or feed among 
The dry grass and the acanthus there ! 

. . . and he, 
He hath flung his faun-skin by, and 

white-ash stick, 
You hear his hymn ? Something of 

Dryope. 
Faunus, and Pan ... an old wood tale, 

no doubt ! 
It makes me think of songs when I was 

young 
I used to sing between the valleys there. 
Or higlier up among the red ash-berries. 
Where the goats climb, and gaze. Do 

yoii remember 
That evening when we lingered all alone. 
Below the city, and one yellow star 
Shook o'er yon temple ? . . . ah, and you 

Baid then, 



" Sweet, should this evening never 

change to night, 
But pause, and pause, and stay just so, 

— yon star 
Still steadfast, and the moon behind the 

hill. 
Still rising, never risen, — would this 

seem strange ? 
Or should we say, ' why halts the day 

so late ? ' " 
Do you remember ? 

^GISTHTTS. 

Woman ! woman ! this 
Surpasses frenzy ! Not a breath of time 
Between us and the clutch of Destiny, — 
Already sound there footsteps at our 

heels, 
Already comes a heat against our cheek, 
Already fingers cold among our hair. 
And you speak lightly thus, as though 

the day 
Lingered toward nuptial hours ! . . . 

awake ! arouse ! 

CLTTEMNESTRA. 

I do wake . . . well, the King — 

^GISTHTJS. 

Even while we speak 
Draws near. And we — 

CLTTEMNESTRA. 

Must meet him. 

iEGISTHUS. 

Meet ? ay . . . how ? 

CLTTEMNESTRA. 

As mortals should meet fortune — calmly. 

^GISTHTJS. 

Quick ! 
Consult ! consult ! Yet there is time to 

choose 
The path to follow. 

CLTTEMNESTRA. 

I have chosen it 
Long since. 

^GISTHUS. 

How? — 

CLTTEMNESTRA, 

0, have we not had ten years 
To ripen counsel, and mature resolve ? 
What 's to add now ? 



310 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



^GISTHUS. 

I comprehend you not. 
The time is plucking at our sleeve. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

iEgisthus, 
There shall he time for deeds, and soon 

enough, 
Let that come when it may. And it 

may be 
Deeds must be done shall shut and shrivel 

up 
All quiet thoughts, and quite preclude 

repose 
To the end of time. Upon this awful 

strait 
And promontory of our mortal life 
"We stand between what was, and is not 

yet. 
The Gods allot to us a little space. 
Before the contests which must soon 

begin. 
For calmer breathing. All before lies 

dark. 
And difficult, and perilous, and strange ; 
And all behind . . . What if we take 

one look. 
One last long lingering look (before 

Despair, 
The shadow of failure, or remorse, which 

often 
Waits on success, can come 'twixt us 

and it, 
And darken all) at that which yet must 

seem 
Undimmed in the long retrospect of 

years, — 
The beautiful imperishable Past ! 
Were this not natural, being innocent 

now 
— At least of that which is the greater 

crime ? 
To-night we shall not be so. 

^GISTHUS. 

Ah, to-night ! 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

All will be done which now the Gods 

foresee. 
The sun shines still. 

^GISTHtrS. 

I oft have marked some day 
Begin all gold in its flusht orient. 
With splendid promise to the waiting 
world, 



And turn to blackness ere the sun ran 

down. 
So draws our love to its dark close. 

To-night — 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Shall bring our bridals, my Beloved ! 

For, either 
Upon the melancholy shores of Death 
(One shadow near the doors of Pluto) 

greeted 
By pale Proserpina, our steps shall be, 
Or else, secure, in the great empty 

palace 
We shall sleep crowned — no noise to 

startle us — 
And Argos silent round us — all our 

own ! 

JBGISTHTJS. 

In truth I do not dare to think this 

thing. 
For all the Greeks will hate us. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

What of that 1 
If that they do not harm us, — as who 
shall ? 

^GISTHUS. 

Moreover, though we triumph in the act 

(And we may fail, and fall) we shall go 
down 

Covered with this reproach into the 
tomb. 

Hunted by all the red Eumenides ; 

And, in the end, the ghost of him we 
slew, 

Being beforehand there, will come be- 
tween 

Us and the awful Judges of the dead ! 

And no one on this earth will pray for 
us ; 

And no hand will hang garlands on our 
urns. 

Either of man, or maid, or little child j 

But we shall be dishonored. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

faint heart ! 
When this poor life of ours is done with 

— all 
Its foolish days put by — its bright and 

dai'k — 
Its praise and blame — rolled quite away 

— gone o'er 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



311 



Like some brief pageant — will it stir us 

more, 
Where we are gone, how men may hoot 

or shout 
After our footsteps, than the dust and 

garlands 
A few mad boys and girls fling in the 

air 
When a great host is passed, can cheer 

or vex 
The minds of men already out of sight 
Toward other lands, with ptean and with 

pomp 
Arrayed near vaster forces ? For the 

future. 
We will smoke hecatombs, and build 

new fanes. 
And be you ^jire the gods deal leniently 
With those who grapple for their life, 

and pluck it 
From the closed grip of Fate, albeit per- 
chance 
Some ugly smutch, some drop of blood 

or so, 
A spot here, there a streak, or stain of 

gore, 
Should in the contest fall to them, and 

mar 
That life's original whiteness. 

wEGISTHUS. 

Tombs have tongues 
That talk in Hades, Think it ! Dare 

we hope. 
This done, to be more happy ? 

CLTTEMNESTBA. 

My Beloved, 
We are not happy, — we may never be, 
Perchance, again. Yet it is much to 

think 
We have been so : and even though we 

must weep. 
We have enjoyed. 

The roses and the thorns 
We have pluckt together. We have 

proved both. Say, 
Was it not worth the bleeding hands 

they left us 
To have won such flowers ? And if 

'twere possible 
To keep them still, — keep even the 

withered leaves, 
Even the withered leaves are worth our 

care. 
We will not tamely give up life, — such 

life! 



What though the years before, like those 

behind, 
Be dark as clouds the thunder sits 

among, 
Tipt only here and there with a wan 

gold 
More bright for rains between ? — 't is 

much, — 't is more. 
For we shall ever think "the sun's be- 
hind. 
The sun must shine before the day goes 

down ! " 
Anything better than the long, long 

night, 
And that perpetual silence of the tomb ! 
'T is not for happier hours, but life itself 
Which may bring happier hours, we 

strike at Fate. 
Why, though from all the treasury of 

the Past 
'T is but one solitary gem we save — 
One kiss more such as we have kist, one 

smile. 
One more embrace, one night more such 

as those 
Which we have shared, how costly were 

the prize, 
How richly worth the attempt ! Indeed, 

I know. 
When yet a child, in those dim pleasant 

dreams 
A girl will dream, perchance in twilit 

hours, 
Or under eve's first star (when we are 

young 
Happiness seems so possible, — so near ! 
One says, "it must go hard, but I shall 

find it ! ") 
Ofttimes I mused, — "My life shall be 

my own, 
To make it what I will." It is their 

fault 
(I thought) who miss the true delights. 

I thought 
Men might have saved themselves : they 

flung away, 
Too easily abasht, life's opening prom- 
ise : 
But all things will be different for me. 
For I felt life so strong in me ! indeed 
I was so sure of my own power to love 
And to enjoy, — I had so much to give, 
I said, "be sure it must win something 

back ! " 
Youth is so confident ! And though I 

saw 
All women sad, — not only those I knew. 



312 



CLYTEMNESTRA, 



As Helen (whom from youth I knew, 

nor ever 
Divined that sad impenetrable smile 
Which oft would darken through her 

lustrous eyes, 
As drawing slowly down o'er her cold 

cheek 
The yellow braids of odorous hair, she 

turned 
From Menelaus praising her, and 

sighed, — 
That was before he, flinging bitterly 

down 
The trampled parsley-crown and un- 

drained goblet, 
Cursed before all the Gods his sudden 

shame 
And young Hermione's deserted yoiith !) 
Not only her, — but all whose lives I 

learned, 
Medea, Deianira, Ariadne, 
And many others, — all weak, wi'onged, 

opprest, 
Or sick and sorrowful, as I am now, — 
Yet in their fate I would not see my 

own. 
Nor grant allegiance to that general 

law 
From which a few, I knew a very few. 
With whom it seemed I also might be 

numbered. 
Had yet escaped securely : — so exempt- 
ing 
From this world's desolation everywhere 
One fate — my own ! 

Well, that was foolish ! Now 
I am not so exacting. As we move 
Further and further down the path of 

fate 
To the sure tomb, we yield up, one by 

one, 
Our claims on Fortune, till with each 

new year 
We seek less and go further to obtain it. 
'Tis the old tale, — aye, all of us must 

learn it ! 
But yet I would not emirty-handed 

stand 
Before the House of Hades. Still there 's 

life. 
And hope with life ; and much that may 

be done. 
Look up, thou most dear and cherisht 

head ! 
We '11 strive still, conquering ; or, if 

falling, fall 
In sight of grand results. 



^GiSTHirs, 

May these things be ! 
I know not. AU is vague. I should be 

strong 
Even were you weak. 'T is otherwise, — 

I see 
No path to safety sure. We have done 

ill things. 
Best let the past be past, lest new griefs 

come. 
Best we part now. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Part ! what, to part from thee ! 
Never till death, — not in death even, 
part ! 

^GISTHTJS. 

But one course now is left. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

And that is — 



Flight. 



.ffiGISTHTTS. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Coward ! 

^GISTHUS. 

I care not. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Flight ! I am a Queen. 
A goddess once you said, — and why not 

goddess ? 
Seeing the Gods are mightier than we 
By so much more of courage. 0, not I, 
But you, are mad. 

iEGISTHUS. 

Nay, wiser than I was. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

And you will leave me ? 

iSGISTHTJS. 

Not if you will come. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

This was the Atlas of the world I built ! 

^GISTHUS. 

Flight ! . . . yes^ I know not . . . some- 
where . . . anywhere. 

You come ? . . . you come not ? . . . well ? 
... no time to pause 1 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



313 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 

And this is he — this he, the man I 

loved ! 
And this is retribution ! my heart ! 
Agamemnon, how art thou avenged ! 
And I have done so much for him ! . . , 

would do 
So much ! . . . a universe lies ruined 

here. 
Now by Apollo, be a man for once ! 
Be for once strong, or be forever weak ! 
If shame be dead, and honor be no more. 
No more true faith, nor that which in 

old time 
Made us like Gods, sublime in our high 

place, 
Yet all surviving instincts warn from 

flight. 
Flight ! — O, impossible ! Even now 

the steps 
Of fate are at the threshold. Which 

way fly? 
For every avenue is barred by death. 
Will these not scout your flying heels ? 

If now 
They hate us powerful, will they love us 

weak ? . 

No land is safe ; nor any neighboring 

king 
Will harbor Agamemnon's enemy. 
Reflect on Troy ; her ashes smoulder yet. 

^GISTHUS. 

Her words compel me with their awful 

truth. 
For so would vengeance hound and earth 

us down. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

If I am weak to move you by that love 
You swore long since — and sealed it 

with false lips ! — 
Yet lives there nothing of the ambitious 

will ? 
Of those proud plots, and dexterous 

policy. 
On which you builded such high hopes, 

and swore 
To rule this people Agamemnon rules ; 
Supplant him eminent on his own throne. 
And push our power through Greece ? 

^GISTHtJS. 

The dream was great. 
It was a dream. We dreamt it like a 
king. 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 
Ay, and shall so fulfil it — like a King ! 
Who talks of flight ? For now, bethink 

you well, 
If to live on, the byword of a world. 
Be any gain, even such flight offers not. 
Will long-armed Vengeance never find 

yoix out 
When you have left the weapon in her 

hands ? 
Be bold, and meet her ! Who forestall 

the bolts 
Of heaven, the Gods deem worthy of the 

Gods. 
Success is made the measure of our acts. 
And, think, ^Egisthus, there has been 

one thought 
Before us in the intervals of years. 
Between us ever in the long dark nights. 
When, lying all awake, we heard the 

wind. 
Did you shrink then ? or, only closer 

drawing 
Your lips to mine, your arms about my 

neck. 
Say, " Who would fear such chances, 

when he saw 
Behind them such a prize for him as 

this ? " 
Do you shrink now ? Dare you put all 

this from you ? 
Revoke the promise of those years, and 

say 
This prospect meets you unprepared at 

last? 
Our motives are so mixt in their begin- 
nings 
And so confused, we recognize them not 
Till they are grown to acts ; but ne'er 

were ours 
So blindly wov'n, but what we both un- 
tangled 
Out of the intricacies of the heart 
One purpose : — being found, best grap- 
ple to it. 
For to conceive ill deeds yet dare not do 

them, 
This is not virtue, but a twofold shame. 
Between the culprit and the demigod 
There 's but one difi"erence men regard — 

success. 
The weakly-wicked shall be doubly 

damned ! 

^GISTHUS. 

I am not weak . . . what will you ? . . . 
O, too weak 



314 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



To bear this scorn ! . . . She is a godlike 

fiend, 
And hell and heaven seem meeting in 

her eyes. 

CLTTEMNESTKA. 

Those who on perilous ventures once 

embark 
Should burn their ships, nor ever dream 

return. 
Better, though all Olympus marched on us, 
To die like fallen Titans, scorning 

Heaven, 
Than live like slaves in scorn of our own 

selves ! 



"We wait then ? Good ! and dare this 

desperate chance. 
And if we fall (as we, I think, must 

fall) 
It is but some few sunny hours we lose. 
Some few bright days. True ! and a 

little less 
Of life, or else of wrong a little more, 
What 's that ? For one shade more or 

less the night 
Will scarce seem darker or lighter, — the 

long night ! 
We '11 fall together, if we fall ; and if — 
0, if we live ! — 

CLYTEMNESTEA. 

Ay, that was noblier thought. 
Now you grow back into yourself, your 

true self. 
My King ! my chosen ! my glad careless 

helpmate 
In the old time ! we shared its pleasant 



Eoyally, did we not ? How brief they 

were ! 
Nor will I deem you less than what I 

know 
You have it in you to become, for this 
Strange freakish fear, — this passing brief 

alarm. 
Do I not know the noble steed will start 
Aside, scared lightly by a straw, a 

shadow, 
A thorn -bush in the way, while the dull 

mule 
Plods stupidly adown the dizziest paths ? 
And oft indeed, such trifles will dismay 
The finest and most eager spirits, which 

yet 



Daunt not a duller mind. love, be 

sure 
Whate'er betide, whether for well or ill. 
Thy fate and mine are bound up in ona 

skein ; 
Clotho must cut them both inseparate. 
You dare not leave me — had you wings 

for flight ! 
You shall not leave me ! You are mine, 

indeed, 
(As I am yours !) by my strong right of 

grief. 
Not death together, but together life ! 
Life — life with safe and honorable years, 
And power to do with these that which 

we would ! 
— His lips comprest — his eye dilates 

— he is saved ! 
0, when strong natures into frailer ones 
Have struck deep root, if one exalt not 

both. 
Both must drag down and perish ! 

iEGISTHUS. 

If we should live — 

CLTTEMJ^ESTRA. 

And we shall Eve. 



iEGISTHUS. 

' Yet . . 



yet- 



CLTTEMNESTRA. 

What ! shrinking still ? 
I 'U do the deed. Do not stand off 
from me. 



Terrible Spirit ! 

CLTTEMNESTKA. 

Nay, not terrible, 
Not to thee terrible — say not so ! 
To thee I never have been anything 
But a weak, passionate, unhappy woman, 
(0 woe is me !) and now you fear me — 



iEGISTHirS. 

But rather worship. 



No, 



CLTTEMNESTRA. 

my heart, my heart. 
It sends up all its anguish in this cry — 
Love me a little ! 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



315 



^GISTHUS. 

What a spell she has 
To sway the inmost courses of the soul ! 
My spirit is held up to such a height 
1 dare not breathe. How finely sits this 

sorrow 
Upon her, like the garment of a God ! 
I cannot fathom her, - Does the same 

birth 
Bring forth the monster and the demi- 
god? 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

I will not doubt ! All 's lost, if love be 
lost, — 

Peace, honor, innocence, — gone, gone ! 
all gone ! 

And you, tQ« — you, poor baffled crown- 
less schemer. 

Whose life my love makes royal, clothes 
in purple. 

Establishes in state, without me, answer 
me, 

What should j'ou do but perish,' as is fit ? 

love, you dare not cease to love me now ! 
We have let the world go by us. We 

have trusted 
To ourselves only : if we fail ourselves 
What shall avail us now ? Without my 

love 
What rests for you but universal hate, 
And Agamemnon's sword ? Ah, no — 

you love me, 
Must love me, better than you ever 

loved, — 
Love me, I think, as you love life itself ! 
jEgisthus ! Speak, ^Egisthus ! 

^GISTHUS. 

great heart, 

1 am all yours. Do with me what you 

will. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

0, if you love me, I have strength for 

both. 
And you do love me still ? 

^GISTHTIS. 

O more, thrice more. 
Thrice more than wert thou Aphrodite's 

self 
Stept zoned and sandalled from the Olym- 
pian Feast 
Or first revealed among the pink sea- 
foam. 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Whate'er I am, be sui-e that I am that 

Which thou hast made me, — nothing of 
myself. 

Once, all unheedful, careless of myself, 

And wholly ignorant of what I was, 

I grew up as a reed some wind will 
touch. 

And wake to prophecy, — till then all 
mute, 

And void of melody, — a foolish weed ! 

My soul was blind, and all my life was 
dark. 

And all my heart pined with some igno- 
rant want. 

I moved about, a shadow in the house. 

And felt unwedded though 1 was a wife ; 

And all the men and women which I 
saw 

Were but as pictures painted on a 
wall: 

To me they had not either heart, or brain, 

Or lips, or language, — pictures ! noth- 
ing more. 

Then, suddenly, athwart those lonely 
hours 

Which, day by day dreamed listlessly 
away. 

Led to the dark and melancholy tomb. 

Thy presence passed and touched me 
with a soul. 

My life did but begin when I found thee. 

what a strength was hidden in this 
heart ! 

As, all unvalued, in its cold dark cave 

Under snow hills, some rare and priceless 

May sparkle and burn, so in this life of 

mine 
Love lay shut up. You broke the rock 



You lit upon the jewel that it hid. 
You plucked it forth, — to wear it, my 

Beloved ! 
To set in the crown of thy dear life ! 
To embellish fortune ! Cast it not away. 
Now call me by the old familiar names : 
Call me again your Queen, as once yoq 

used ; 
Your large-eyed Here ! 

^GISTHUS. 

O, you are a Queei) 
That should have none but Gods to ruU 

over ! 
Make me immortal with one costly kiss } 



316 



CLYTEMNESTEA. 



VIII. CHORUS. ELECTRA. CLY- 
TEMJSTESTRA. ^GISTHUS. 

CHORUS. 

lo ! lo ! I hear the people shout. 

ELECTEA. 

See how these two do mutually confer, 
Hatching new infamy. Now wiU he 

dare, 
In his unbounded impudence, to meet 
My fathei''s eyes ? The hour is nigh at 

hand. 

CLYTEMNESTEA. 

love, be bold ! the hour is nigh at hand. 

ELECTRA. 

Laden with retribution, lingering slow. 

^aiSTHUS. 

A time in travaQ with some great distress. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Nay, rather safety for the rest of time. 
love ! hate ! 

ELECTEA. 

vengeance ! 



iBGISTHXJS. 



If favoring fate — 



wild chance 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Despair is more than fate. 

CHORUS. 

lo ! lo ! The King is on his march. 

^GISTHUS. 

Did you hear that ? 

ELECTRA. 

The hour is nigh at hand ! 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Leave me to deal with these. I know 
the arts 

That guide the doubtful purpose of dis- 
course 

Through many windings to the appointed 
goal. 

I'll draw them on to such a frame of 
mind 



As best befits our purpose. You, mean- 
while, 

Scatter vague words among the other 
crowd. 

Lest the event, when it is due, fall foul 

Of unpropitious natures. 

4;gisthus. 

Do you fear 
The helpless, blind ill-will of such a 
crowd ? 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

He only fears mankind who knows them 

not. 
But him I praise not who despises them. 
Whence come, Electra ? 



From my father's hearth 
To meet him ; for the hour is nigh at 
hand. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

So do our hopes race hotly to one end, 
(A noble rivalry !) as who shall first 
Embrace this happy fortune. Tarry not. 
We too wiU follow. 

ELECTRA. 

Justice, be swift ! 



IX. CLYTEMNESTRA. CHORUS. 
SEMI-CHORUS. HERALD. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

A froward child ! She 's gone. My 

blood 's in her. 
Her father's, too, looks out of that proud 

face. 
She is too bold . . . ha, well — .^Egis- 

thus ? . . . gone ! 
fate ! to be a woman ! You gjeat Gods, 
Why did you fashion me in this soft 

mould ? 
Give me these lengths of silky hair? 

These hands 
Too delicately dimpled ! and these arms 
Too white, too weak ! yet leave the 

man's heart in me. 
To mar your masterpiece, — that I should 

perish. 
Who else had won renown among my 

peers. 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



317 



A man, with men, — perchance a god 

with you, 
Had you but better sexed me, you blind 

Gods! 
But, as for man, all things are fitting to 

him. 
He strikes his fellow 'mid the clanging 

shields. 
And leaps among the smoking walls, and 

takes 
Some long-haired virgin wailing at the 

shrines, 
Her brethren having fallen ; and you 

Gods 
Commend him, crown him, grant him 

ample days. 
And dying honor, and an endless peace 
Among the deep Elysian asphodels. 
fate, to be a woman ! To be led 
Dumb, like a poor mule, at a master's 

will. 
And be a slave, though bred in palaces. 
And be a fool, though seated with the 

wise, — 
A poor and pitiful fool, as I am now. 
Loving and hating my vain life away ! 



These ilowers — we plucked them 
At morning, and took them 
From bright bees that sucked them 
And warm winds that shook them 
'Neath blue hills that o'erlook them. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

With the dews of the meadow 
Our rosy warm fingers 
Sparkle yet, and the shadow 
Of the summer-cloud lingers 
In the hair of us singers. 

FIRST SEMI-CHORUS. 

Ere these buds on our altars 
Fade ; ere the forkt fire. 
Fed with pure honey, falters 
And fails : louder, higher 
Raise the Paean. 

SECOND SEMI-CHORUS. 

Draw nigher, 
Stand closer ! First praise we 
The Father of all. 
To him the song raise we. 
Over Heaven's golden wall 
Let it fall ! Let it fall 1 



FIRST SEMI-CHORUS. 

Then Apollo, the king of 
The lyre and the bow ; 
Who taught us to sing of 
The deeds that we know, — 
Deeds well done long ago. 

SECOND SEMI-CHORUS. 

Next, of all the Immortals, 
Athene's gray eyes ; 
Who sits throned in our portals, 
Ever fair, ever wise. 

FIRST SEMI-CHORUS. 

Neither dare we despise 
To extol the great Here. 

SECOND SEMI-CHORUS. 

And then, 

As is due, shall our song 

Be of those among men 

Who were brave, who were strong, 

Who endured. 

FIRST SEMI-CHORUS. 

Then, the wrong 
Of the Phrygian : and Ilion's false sons : 
And Scamander's wild wave 
Through the bleak plain that runs. 

SECOND SEMI-CHORUS. 

Then, the death of the brave. 

FIRST SEMI-CHORUS. 

Last, of whom the Gods save 
For new honors : of them none 
So good or so great 
As our chief Agamemnon 
The crown of our State. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

friends, true hearts, rejoice with me ! 

This day 
Shall crown the hope of ten uncertain 

years ! 

CHORUS. 

For Agamemnon cannot be far oflF — 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

He comes — and yet — Heaven pre- • 

serve us all ! 
My heart is weak — there's One he brings 

not back ; 



318 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



Who went with him ; who will not 

come again ; 
Whom we shall never see ! — 

CHORirs. 

Queen, for whom, 
Lamenting thus, is your great heart cast 
down ? 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

The earliest loved — the early lost ! my 
child — 



Iphigenia ! 



CHORUS. 
CLYTEMNESTRA. 

She — my child - 

CHORUS. 

That was a terrible necessity ! 



— Alas! 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Was it necessity ? pardon, friends. 
But in the dark, unsolaced solitude. 
Wild thoughts come to me, and perplex 

my heart. 
This, which you call a dread necessity, 
Was it a murder or a sacrifice ? 

CHORUS. 

It was a God that did decree the death. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

'Tis through the heart the Gods do 

speak to us. 
High instincts are the oracles of heaven. 
Did ever heart, — did ever God, before. 
Suggest such foul infanticidal lie ? 

CHORUS. 

Be comforted ! The universal good 
Needed this single, individual loss. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Can all men's good be helped by one 
man's crime ? 

CHORUS. 

He loosed the Greeks from Aulis by that 
deed. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

casual argument ! Who gave the 

Greeks 
Such bloody claim upon a virgin's life ? 



Shall the pure bleed to purge impurity ? 
A hundred Helens were not worth that 

death ! 
What ! had the manhood of combined 

Greece, 
Whose boast was in its untamed strength, 

no help 
Better than the spilt blood of one poor 

girl? 
Or, if it were of need that blood should 

flow, 
What God ordained him executioner ? 
Was it for him the armament was 

planned ? 
For him that angry Greece was leagued 

in war? 
For him, or Menelaus, was this done ? 
Was the cause his, or Menelaus' cause ? 
Was he less sire than Menelaus was ? 
He, too, had childi-en ; did he murder 

them? 
0, was it manlike ? was it human, even ? 

CHORUS. 

Alas ! alas ! it was an evil thing. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

friends, if any one among you all. 

If any be a mother, bear with me ! 

She was my earliest bom, my best be- 
loved. 

The painful labor of that perilous birth 

That gave her life did almost take my 
own. 

He had no pain. He did not bring her 
forth. 

How should he, therefore, love her as I 
loved ? 

CHORUS. 

Ai ! ai ! alas ! Our tears run down 
with yours. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

0, who shall say with what delicious 

tears, 
With what ineflFable tenderness, while 

he 
Took his blithe pastime on the windy 

plain. 
Among the ringing camps, and neighing 

steeds, 
First of his glad compeers, I sat apart. 
Silent, within the solitary house : 
Rocking the little child upon my breast ; 
And soothed its soft eyes into sleep with 

song! 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



319 



CHORtrs. 
Ai ! ai ! imliappy, sad, unchilded one ! 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Or, when I ta-ught, from inarticulate 

sounds, 
The little, lisping lips, to breathe his 

name. 
Now they will never breathe that name 

again ! 

CHORUS. 

Alas ! for Hades has not any hope. 
Since Thracian women lopped the tune- 
ful head 
Of Orpheus, and Heracleus is no more. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Or, spread in prayer, the helpless, infant 

hands, 
That they, too, might invoke the Gods 

for him. 
Alas, who now invokes the Gods for her ? 
Unwedded, hapless, gone to glut the 

womb 
Of dark, untimely Orcus ! 



CHORUS. 



Ai ! alas ! 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 

I would have died, if that could be, for 

her ! 
When life is half-way set to feeble eld, 
And memory more than hope, and to 

dim eyes 
The gorgeous tapestry of existence shows 
Mothed, fingered, frayed, and bare, 

't were not so hard 
To fling away this ravelled skein of 

life, 
Which else, a little later, Fate had cut. 
And who would sorrow for the o'erblown 

rose 
Sharp winter strews about its own bleak 

thorns ? 
But, cropped before the time, to fall so 

young ! 
And wither in the gloomy crown of Dis ! 
Never to look upon the blessed, sun — 

CHORUS. 

Ai ! ai ! alinon ! woe is me, this grief 
Strikes pity paralyzed. All words are 
weak ! 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 

And I had dreamed such splendid breams 

for her ! 
Who would not so for Agamemnon's 

child ? 
For we had hoped that she, too, in her 

time 
Would be the mother of heroic men ! 

CHORUS. 

There rises in my heart an awful fear. 

Lest from these evils darker evils come ; 

For heaven exacts, for wrong, the utter- 
most tear, 

And death hath language after life ia 
dumb ! 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

It works ! it works ! 

CHORUS. 

Look, some one comes this way. 

HERALD. 

Honor of the House of Tantalus ! 
The king's wheels echo in the brazen 
gates. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Our heart is half-way there, to welcome 

him. 
How looks he ? Well ? And all our 

long-lost friends — 
Their faces grow before me ! Lead the 

way 
Where we may meet them. All our 

haste seems slow. 

CHORUS. 

Would that he brought his dead chUd 
back with him ! 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Now let him come. The mischief works 
apace ! 



X. CHORUS. 

CHORUS. 

The winds were lulled in Aulis ; and the 

day, 
Down-sloped, was loitering to the lazy 

west. 
There was no motion of the glassy bay, 



320 



CLYTEMNESTEA. 



But all tilings by a heavy light opprest. 
"Windless, cut off from the destined 

way, — 
Dark shrouds, distinct against the lurid 

lull, — 
Dark ropes hung useless, loose, from 

mast to hull, — 
The black ships lay abreast. 
Not any cloud would cross the brooding 

skies. 
The distant sea boomed faintly. Nothing 

more. 
They walked about upon the yellow 

shore ; 
Or, lying listless, huddled groups supine. 
With faces turned toward the flat sea- 
spine, 
They planned the Phrygian battle o'er 

and o'er ; 
Till each grew sullen, and would talk 

no more. 
But sat, dumb-dreaming. Then would 

some one rise. 
And look toward the hollow hulls, with 

haggard, hopeless eyes — 
"Wild eyes — and, crowding round, yet 

wilder eyes — 
And gaping, languid lips ; 
And everywhere that men could see, 
About the black, black ships, 
Was nothing but the deep-red sea ; 
The deep-red shore ; 
The deep-red skies ; 
The deep-red silence, thick with thirsty 

sighs ; 
And daylight, dying slowly. Nothing 

more. 
The tall masts stood upright ; 
And not a sail above the burnished 

prores ; 
The languid sea, like one outwearied 

quite, 
Shrank, dying inward into hollow shores. 
And breathless harbors, under sandy 

bars ; 
And, one by one, down tracts of quiv- 
ering blue. 
The singed and sultry stars 
Looked from the inmost heaven, far, 

faint, and few. 
While, all below, the sick and steaming 

brine 
The spilled-out sunset did incarnadine. 

At last one broke the silence ; and a word 
Was lisped and buzzed about, from 
mouth to mouth; 



Pale faces grew more pale ; wild whis- 
pers stirred ; 
And men, with moody, murmuring lips, 

conferred 
In ominous tones, from shaggy beards 

uncouth : 
As though some wind had broken from 

the blurred 
And blazing prison of the stagnant 

drouth. 
And stirred the salt sea in the stifled 

south. 
The long-robed priests stood round ; 

and, in the gloom. 
Under black brows, their bright and 

greedy eyes 
Shone deathfully ; there was a sound of 

sighs, 
Thick-sobbed from choking throats 

among the crowd, 
That, whispering, gathered close, with 

dark heads bowed ; 
But no man lifted up his voice aloud. 
For heavy hung o'er all the helpless 

sense of doom. 

Then, after solemn prayer. 
The father bade the attendants, tenderly 
Lift her upon the lurid altar-stone. 
There was no hope in any face ; each eye 
Swam tearful, that her own did gaze 

upon. 
They bound her helpless hands with 

mournful care ; 
And looped up her long hair. 
That hung about her, like an amber 

shower. 
Mixed with the saffron robe, and falling 

lower, 
Down from her bare and cold white 

shoulder flung. 
Upon the heaving breast the pale cheek 

hung, 
Suffused with that wild light that roUed 

among 
The pausing crowd, out of the crimson 

droxith. 
They held hot hands upon her pleading 

mouth ; 
And stifled on faint lips the natural cry. 
Back from the altar-stone. 
Slow-moving in his fixed place 
A little 'space. 
The opeechless father turned. No word 

was said. 
He wrapped his mantle close about his 

face, 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



321 



In his dumb grief, without a moan. 
The lopping axe was lifted overhead. 
Then, suddenly. 
There sounded a strange motion of the 

sea, 
Booming fa.r inland ; and above the 

east 
A ragged cloud rose slowly, and increased. 
Not one line in the horoscope of Time 
Is perfect. 0, what falling off is this. 
When some grand soul, that else had 

been sublime. 
Falls unawares amiss, 
And stoops its crested strength to sudden 

crime ! 

So gracious a thing is it, and sweet, 

In life's clear centre one true man to see. 

That holds*Strong nature in a wise con- 
trol ; 

Throbbing out, all round, the heat 

Of a large and liberal soul. 

No shadow, simulating life, 

But pulses warm with human nature, 

In a soul of godlike stature ; 

Heart and brain, all rich and rife 

With noble instincts ; strong to meet 

Time calmly, in his purposed place. 

Sound through and through, and all 
complete ; 

Exalting what is low and base ; 

Enlarging what is narrow and small ; 

He stamps his character on all, 

And with his grand identity 

Fills up Creation's eye. 

He will not dream the aimless years away 

In blank delay. 

But makes eternity of to-day, 

And reaps the full-eared time. For him 

Nature her affluent horn doth brim. 

To strew with fruit and flowers his way — 

Fruits ripe and flowers gay. 

The clear soul in his earnest eyes 
Looks through and through all plaited 

lies. 
Time shall not rob him of his youth, 
Nor narrow his large sympathies. 
He is not true, he is a truth, 
And such a truth as never dies. 
Who knows his nature, feels his right, 
And, toiling, toils for his delight ; 
Not as slaves toil : where'er he goes. 
The desert blossoms with the rose. 
He trusts himself in scorn of doubt. 
And lets orbed purpose widen out. 
The world works with him ; all men see 
21 



Some part of them fulfilled in him ; 
His memory never shall grow dim ; 
He holds the heaven and earth in fee, 
Not following that, fulfilling this, 
He is immortal, for he is ! 

weep ! weep ! weep ! 

Weep for the young that die ; 

As it were pale flowers that wither under 

The smiting sun, and fall asunder, 

Before the dews on the grass are dry, 

Or the tender twilight is out of the sky, 

Or the hlies have fallen asleep ; 

Or ships by a wanton wind cut short 

Are wrecked in sight of the placid port 

Sinking strangely, and suddenly — 

Sadly, and strangely, and suddenly - 

Into the black Plutonian deep. 

weep ! weep ! weep ! 

Weep, and bow the head. 

For those whose sun is set at noon ; 

Whose night is dark, without a moon ; 

Whose aim of life is sped 

Beyond pursuing woes, 

And the arrow of angry foes. 

To the darkness that no man knows — 

The darkness among the dead. 

Let us mourn, and bow the head. 

And lift up the voice, and weep 

For the early dead ! 

For the early dead we may bow the head, 

And strike the breast, and weep ; 

But, 0, what shall be said 

For the living soiTow ? 

For the living sorrow our grief — 

Dumb grief — draws no relief 

From tears, nor yet may borrow 

Solace from sound or speech ; — 

For the living sorrow 

That heaps to-morrow upon to-morrow 

In piled-up pain, beyond Hope's reach ! 

It is well that we mourn for the early 

dead, 
Strike the breast, and bow the head ; 
For the sorrow for these may be sung, 

or said. 
And the chaplets be woven for the fallen 

head, 
And the urns to the stately tombs be 

led. 
And Love from their memory may be 

fed. 
And song may ennoble the anguish ; 
But, 0, for the living sorrow, — 
For the living sorrow what hopes remain ? 
For the prisoned, pining, passionate pain, 
That is doomed forever to languish, 



322 



CLYTEMNESTKA. 



And to languish forever in vain, 
For the want of the words that may he- 
stead 
The hunger that out of loss is hred. 
O friends, for the living sorrow — 
For the living sorrow — 
For the living sorrow what shall be said ? 



XI. A PHOCIAN. CHOEUS. SEMI- 
CHOKUS. 

PHOCIAN. 
noble strangers, if indeed you be 
Such as you seem, of Argos, and the land 
That the unconquer'd Agamemnon rules, 
Tell me is this the palace, these the roofs 
Of the Atridse, famed in ancient song ? 

CHORUS. 

Not without truth you name the neigh- 
borhood, 

Standing before the threshold, and the 
doors 

Of Pelops, and upon the Argive soil. 

That which you see above the Agora 

Is the old fane of the Lycsean God, 

And this the house of Agamemnon's 
queen. 

But whence art thou ? For if thy dusty 
locks, 

And those soiled sandals show with 
alight of truth. 

Thou shouldst be come from far. 

PHOCIAN. 

And am so, friends, 
But, by Heaven's favor, here my jour- 
ney ends. 

CHORTJS. 

"Whence, then, thy way ? 

PHOCIAN. 

From Phocis ; charged with gifts 
For Agamemnon, and with messages 
From Strophius, and the sister of your 

king. 
Our watchmen saw the beacon on the 

hills. 
And leaped for joy. Say, is the king 

yet come ? 

CHOBTTS. 

He comes this way ; stand by, I hear 
them shout] 



Here shall you meet him, as he mounts 
the hill. 

PHOCIAN. 

Now blest be all the Gods, from Father 

Zeus, 
"Who reigns o'er windy (Eta, far away, 
To King Apollo, with the golden horns. 



Look how they cling about him ! Far 

and near 
The town breaks loose, and follows after, 
Crowding up the ringing ways. 
The boy forgets to watch the steer ; 
The grazing steer forgets to graze ; 
The shepherd leaves the herd ; 
The priest will leave the fane ; 
The deep heart of the land is stirred 
To sunny tears, and tearful laughter. 
To look into his face again. 

Burst, burst the brazen gates ! 
Throw open the hearths, and follow ! 
Let the shouts of the youths go up to 

Apollo, 
Lord of the graceful quiver : 
Till the tingling sky dilates — 
Dilates, and paljiitates ; 
And, Psean ! Paean ! the virgins sing ; 
Psean ! Psean ! the king ! the king ! 
Laden with spoils from Phrygia ! 
lo ! To ! lo ! they sing 
Till the pillars of Olympus ring : 
lo ! to Queen Ortygia, 
"Whose double torch shall bum forever ! 
But thou, Lord of the graceful quiver. 
Bid, bid thy Pythian splendor halt, 
Where'er he beams, surpassing sight ; 
Or on some ocean isthmus bent. 
Or wheeled from the dark continent. 
Half-way down Heaven's rosy vault. 
Toward the dewy cone of night. 
Let not the breathless air grow dim, 
Until the whole land look at him ! 



Stand back ! 



SEMI-CHORUS. 



SEMI-CHORUS. 

"Will he come this way ? 



SEMI-CHORUS. 
SEMI-CHORUS. 

Gods, what a crowd ! 



No ; by us. 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



323 



SEMI-CHORtrs. 
How firm the old men walk ! 

SEMI-CHOKtrS. 

There goes the king. I know him by 
his beard. 

SEMI-CHORUS, 

And I, too, by the manner of his gait. 
That Godlike spirit lifts him from the 
earth. 

SEMI-CHORirS. 

How gray he looks ! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

His cheek is seamed with scars. 

m 
SEMI-CHORUS. 

"What a bull's front ! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

He stands up like a tower. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Ay, like some moving tower of armed 

men, 
That carries conquest under city-walls. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

He lifts his sublime head, and in his 

port 
Bears eminent authority. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Behold, 
His spear shows like the spindle of a 
Fate! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

0, what an arm ! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Most fit for such a sword ; 
Look at that sword. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

What shoulders ! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

What a throat ! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

What are these bearing ? 



SEMI-CHORUS. 

Frns. 



SEMI-CHORUS. 



Alas ! alas 1 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

friends, look here ! how are the mighty 

men 
Shrunk up into a little vase of earth, 
A child might lift. Sheathed each in 

brazen plates, 
They went so heavy, they come back so 

light, 
Sheathed, each one, in the brazen urn of 

death ! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

With what a stateliness he moves along ! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

See, how they touch his skirt, and grasp 
his hand ! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 
Is that the queen ? 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Ay, how she matches him ! 
With what grand eyes she looks up, full 
in his ! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Say, what are these ? 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Phrygians ! how they walk ! 
The only sad men in the crowd, I think. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

But who is this, that with such scornful 

brows, 
And looks averted, walks among the 

rest? 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

1 know not, but some Phrygian woman, 



SEMI-CHORUS. 

Her heavy-fallen hair down her white 

neck 
(A dying sunbeam tangled in each tress) 
All its neglected beauty pours one way. 



324 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



SEMI-CHORUS. 
Her looks bend ever on the alien ground, 
As though the stones of Troy were in 

her path. 
And in the pained paleness of her brow 
Sorrow hath made a regal tenement. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 
Here comes Electra ; young Orestes, too ; 
See how he emulates his father's stride ! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Look at .ffigisthus, where he walks apart, 
And bites his lip. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

I oft have seen him so 
When something chafes him in his bitter 
moods. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Peace, here they come ! 

CHORUS. 

lo ! lo ! The King ! 



XII. AGAMEMNON, CLYTEMNES- 
TRA, ^GISTHUS, ELECTRA, 
ORESTES, CASSANDRA, a PJiocian, 
Chorus, Semi-Chorus, and others in the 
procession. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

blazing sun, that in thy skyey tower 
Pausest to see one kingly as thyself, 
Lend all thy brightest beams to light his 

• head. 
And gild our gladness ! Friends, behold 

the King ! 
Now hath ^tolian Jove, the arbiter 
Of conquests, well disposed the issues 

here ; 
For every night that brought not news 

from Troy 
Heaped fear on fear, as waves succeed to 

waves, 
"When Northern blasts blow white the 

Cretan main, — 
Knowing that thou, far off, from toil to 

toil 
Climbedst, uncertain. Unto such an one 
His children, and young offspring of the 

house 
Are as a field, which he, the husbandman. 



Owning far off, does only look upon 
At seedtime once, nor then till hai-vest 

comes ; 
And his sad wife must wet with nightly 

tears 
Unsolaced pillows, fearing for his fate. 
To these how welcome, then, his glad 

return, 
When he, as thou, comes heavy with the 

weight 
Of great achievements, and the spoils of 

time. 

AGAMEMNON. 

Enough ! enough ! we weigh you at full 

worth, 
And hold you dear, whose gladness equals 

yours ; 
But women ever err by over-talk. 
Silence to women, as the beard to men, 
Brings honor ; and plain truth is hurt, 

not helped 
By many words. To each his separate 

sphere 
The Gods allot. To me the sounding 

camp. 
Steeds, and the oaken spear ; to you the 

hearth. 
Children, and household duties of the 

loom. 
'T is man's to win an honorable name ; 
Woman's to keep it honorable still. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

(0 beast ! weakness of this woman- 
hood ! 

To let these pompous male things strut 
in our eyes, 

And in their lordship lap themselves se- 
cure, 

Because the lots in life are fallei^ to them. 

Am I less heart and head, less blood and 
brain, 

Less force and feeling, pulse and passion 

Than this self -worshipper — a lie all 

through ?) 
Forgive if joy too long unloose our lips. 
Silent so long : your words fall on my 

soul 
As rain on thirsty lands, that feeds the 

dearth 
With blessed nourishment. My whole 

heart hears. 
You speaking thus, I would be silent 

ever. 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



325 



AGAMEMNON. 

Who is this man ? 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

A Phocian, by his look. 

PHOCIAN. 

King, from Strophius, and your sister's 

court, 
Despatched with this sealed tablet, and 

with gifts. 
Though both express, so says my royal 

Head, 
But poorly the rich welcome they intend. 
Will you see this ? — and these ? 

AGAMEMNON. 

Anon ! anon ! 
We'll lool^at them within. child, 

thine eyes 
Look wanner welcome than all words 

express. 
Thou art mine own child by that royal 

brow. 
Nature hath marked thee mine. 



Father ! 

AGAMEMNON. 

Come ! 
And our Orestes ! He is nobly grown ; 
He shall do great deeds when our own 

are dim. 
So shall men come to say ** the father's 

sword 
In the son's hands hath hewn out nobler 

fame." 
Think of it, little one ! where is our 

cousin ? 

.EGISTHUS. 

flere 1 And the keys of the Acropolis ? 

AGAMEMNON. 

well ! this dust and heat are over- 
much. 

And, cousin, you look pale. Anon ! 
anon ! 

Speak to us by and by. Let business 
wait. 

Is our house ordered ? we will take the 
bath. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Will you within ? where all is ordered fair 
Befitting state : cool chambers, marble- 
floored 



Or piled with blazing carpets, scented 

rare 
With the sweet spirit of each odorous gum 
In dim, delicious, amorous mists about 
The purple-paven, silver-sided bath. 
Deep, flashing, pure. 

AGAMEMNON. 

Look to our captives then. 
I charge you chiefly with this woman 

here, 
Cassandra, the mad prophetess of Troy. 
See that you chafe her not in her wild 

moods. 



XIII. CLYTEMNESTRA. ^GIS- 
THUS. 



Linger not I 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 
jEGISTHUS. 

What ? you will to-day - 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



■ — This hour. 

^GISTHUS. 

0, if some chance mar aU ! 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

We '11 make chance sure. 

Doubt is the doomsman of self-judged 
disgrace : 

But every chance brings safety to self- 
help. 

^GISTHTJS. 

Ay, but the means — the time — 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

— Fulfil themselves. 
most irresolute heart ! is this a time 
When through the awful pause of life, 

distinct. 
The sounding shears of Fate slope near, 

to stand 
Meek, like tame wethers, and be shorn ? 

How say you. 
The blithe wind up, and the broad sea 

before him, 
Who would crouch all day long beside 

the mast 
Counting the surges beat his idle helm, 
Because between him and the golden isles 



326 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



The shadow of a passing storm might 
hang? 

Danger, being pregnant, doth beget re- 
solve. 

^GISTHUS. 

Thou wert not born to fail. Give me 
thy hand. 

CLYTEMNESTSA. 

Take it. 

^GISTHXTS. 

. It does not tremble. 

CLTTEMNESTRA. 

be strong ! 
The future hangs upon the die we cast : 
Fortune plays Mgh for us — 

iEGISTHTJS. 

Gods grant she win. 



XIV. CHORUS. SEMI-CHORUS. 
CASSANDRA. 

CHORUS. 

thou that dost with globed glory 
Sweep the dark world at noon of night, 
Or among snowy summits, wild and 

hoary, 
Or through the mighty silences 
Of immemorial seas, 
With all the stars behind thee flying 

white, 
take with thee, where'er 
Thou wanderest, ancient Care, 
And hide her in some interlunar haunt ; 
Where but the wild bird's chaunt 
At night, through rocky ridges gaunt. 
Or meanings of some homeless sea may 

iind her 
There, Goddess, bar, and bind her ; 
Where she may pine, but wander not ; 
Loathe her haunts, but leave them not ; 
Wail and rave to the wind and wave 
That hear, yet understand her not ; 
And curse her chains, yet cleave them 

not ; 
And hate her lot, yet help it not. 
Or let her rove with Gods undone 
Who dwell below the setting sun, 
And the sad western hours 
That burn in fiery bowers ; 
Or in Amphitrite's grot 
Where the vexed tides unite. 
And the spent wind, howling, breaks 



O'er sullen oceans out of sight 

Among sea-snakes, that the white moon 
wakes 

Till they shake themselves into diamond 
flakes. 

Coil and twine in the glittering brine 

And swing themselves in the long moon- 
shine ; 

Or by wild shores hoarsely rage, 

And moan, and vent her spite, 

In some inhospitable harborage 

Of Thracian waters, white. 

There let her grieve, and grieve, and 
hold her breath 

Until she hate herself to death. 

I seem with rapture lifted higher, 

Like one in mystic trance. 

Pan ! Pan ! Pan ! 

First friend of man, 

And founder of Heaven's choir, 

Come thou from old Cyllene, and inspire 

The Gnossian, and Nyssean dance ! 

Come thou, too, Delian king, 

From the blue JEgean sea. 

And Mycone's yellow coast : 

Give my spirit such a wing 

As there the foolish Icarus lost. 

That she may soar above the cope 

Of this high pinnacle of gladness, 

And dizzy height of hope ; 

And there, beyond all reach of sadness, 

May tune my lips to sing 

Great Pseans, full and free, 

Till the whole v/orld ring 

With such heart-melting madness 

As bards are taught by thee ! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Look to the sad Cassandra, how she 
stands ! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

She turns not from the wringing of her 
hands. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

What is she doing ? 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Look, her lips are moved. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

And yet their motion shapes not any 



sound. 



Speak to her. 



SEMI-CHORUS. 



CLYTEMNESTEA. 



327 



SEMI-CHORUS. 

She will heed not. 

SEMI-CHOETJS. 

But yet speak. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Unhappy woman, cease a little while 

From mourning. Recognize the work 
of Heaven. 

Troy smoulders. Think not of it. Let 
the past 

Be buried in the past. Tears mend it 
not. 

Fate may be kindlier, yet, than she ap- 
pears. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

She does not answer. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Call to her again. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

O break this scornful silence ! Hear us 



We would console you. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Look, how she is moved ! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

O speak ! the heart's hurt oft is helped 
by words. 

CASSANDRA. 

Itys ! Itys ! Itys ! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

What a shriek ! 
She takes the language of the nightingale, 
Unhappy bird ! that mourns her per- 
ished form, 
And leans her breast against a thorn, all 
night. 

CASSANDRA. 

The bull is in the shambles. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Listen, friends ! 
She mutters something to herself. 



CASSANDRA. 



Did auy name Apollo ? woe is me 



Alas! 



SEMI-CHORUS. 

She calls upon the God. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Unhappy one. 
What sorrow strikes thee with bewilder- 
ment ? 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Now she is mute again. 

CHORUS. 

A Stygian cold 
Creeps through my limbs, and loosens 

every joint. 
The hot blood freezes in its arteries, 
And stagnates round the region of the 

heart. 
A cloud comes up from sooty Acheron, 
And clothes mine eyelids 
With infernal night. 
My hair stands up. 
What supernatural awe 
Shoots, shrivelling through me, 
To the marrow and bone ? 
dread and wise Prophetic Powers, 
Whose strong-compelling law 
Doth hold in awe 
The laboring hours, 
Your intervention I invoke, 
My soul from this wUd doubt to save ; 
Whether you have 
Your dwelling in some dark, oracular 

cave, 
Or solemn, sacred oak ; 
Or in Dodona's ancient, honored beech, 
Whose mystic boughs above 
Sat the wise dove ; 
Or if the tuneful voice of old 
Awake in Delos, to unfold 
Dark wisdom in ambiguous speech. 
Upon the verge of strange despair 
My heart grows dizzy. Now I seem 
Like one that dreams some ghastly 

dream, 
And cannot cast away his care. 
But harrows all the haggard air 
With his hard breath. Above, be- 
neath, 
The empty silence seems to teem 
With apprehension. declare 
What hidden thing doth Fate prepare, 
What hidden, horrible thing doth Fate 

prepare ? 
For of some hidden grief my heart seems 

half aware. 



328 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



XV. CLYTEMIs^ESTRA. CASSAN- 
DRA. CHORUS. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

One blow makes all sure. Ay, but then, 

— beyond ? 
I cannot trammel up the future thus, 
And so forecast the time, as with one 

blow 
To break the hundred Hydra-heads of 

Chance. 
Beyond — beyond I dare not look, for 

who, 
If first he scanned the space, would leap 

the gulf? 
One blow secures the moment. 0, but 

he. . . 
Ay, there it lies ! I dread lest my love, 

being 
So much the stronger, scare his own to 

death ; 
As what they comprehend not, men ab- 
hor. 
He has a wavering nature, easily 
Unpoised ; and trembling ever on ex- 
tremes. 
0, what if terror outweigh love, and 

love, 
Having defiled his countenance, take 

part 
Against himself, self-loathed, a fallen 

God? 
Ah, his was never yet the loving soul. 
But rather that which lets itself be loved ; 
As some loose lily leans upon a lake. 
Letting the lymph reflect it, as it will. 
Still idly swayed, whichever way the 

stream 
Stirs the green tangles of the water moss. 
The flower of his love never bloomed 

upright, . , , , , 
But a sweet parasite, that loved to lean 
On stronger natures, winning strength 

from them, — 
Not such a flower as whose delirious cup 
Maddens the bee, and never can give 

forth 
Enough of fragrance, yet is ever sweet. 
Yet which is sweetest, — to receive or 

give ? 
Sweet to receive, and sweet to give, in 

love ! 
When one is never sated that receives, 
Nor ever all exhausted one that gives. 
I think I love him more, that I resem- 
\ ble 

So little aught that pleases me in him. 



Perchance, if I dared question this dark 
heart, 

'T is not for him, but for myself in him, 

For that which is my softer self in him, — 

I have done this, and this, — and shall 
do more : 

Hoped, wept, dared wildly, and will 
overcome ! 

Does he not need me ? It is sweet to 
think 

That I am all to him, whate'er I be 

To others ; and to one, — little, I know ! 

But to him, all things, — sceptre, sword, 
and crown. 

For who would live, but to be loved by 
some one ? 

Be fair, but to give beauty to another ? 

Or wise, but to instruct some sweet de- 
sire ? 

Or strong, but that thereby love may re- 
joice ? 

Or who for crime's sake would be crimi- 
nal ? 

And yet for love's sake would not dare 
wild deeds ? 

A mutual necessity, one fear, 

One hope, and the strange posture of the 
time 

Unite us now ; — but this need over- 
past, 

0, if, 'twixt his embrace and mine, 
there rise 

The reflex of a murdered head ! and he, 

Remembering the crime, remember not 

It was for him that I am criminal, 

But rather hate me for the part he 
took — 

Against his soul, as he will say — in 
this ? — 

I will not think it. Upon this wild 
venture. 

Freighted with love's last wealthiest 
merchandise. 

My heart sets forth. To-morrow I shall 
wake 

A beggar, as it may be, or thrice rich. 

As one who plucks his last gem from his 
crown 

(Some pearl for which, in youth, he bar- 
tered states) 

And, sacrificing with an anxious heart, 

Toward night puts seaward in a little 
bark 

For lands reported far beyond the sun. 

Trusting to win back kingdoms, or there 
drown — 

So I — and with like perilous endeavor ! 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



329 



0, but I thi'ck I could implore the Gods 

Move fervently than ever, in my youth, 

I pi'ayed that help of Heaven I needed 
not, 

And. lifted innocent hands to their great 
sky. 

So much to lose ... so much to gain 
... so much . . . 

I dare not think how . . . 

Ha, the Phrygian slave ! 

He dares to bring his mistress to the 
hearth ! 

She looks unhappy. I will speak to her. 

Perchance her hatred may approve my 
own, 

And help me in the work I am about. 

'T were well to sound her. 

Be not so cast down. 

Unhappy stranger ! Fear no jealous 
hand. 

In sorrow I, too, am not all untried. 

Our fortunes are not so dissimilar, 

Slaves both — and of one master. 

Nay, approach. 

Is my voice harsh in its appeal to thee ? 

If so, believe me, it belies my heart. 

A woman speaks to thee. 

What, silent still ? 

0, look not on me with such sullen eyes. 

There is no accusation in my own. 

Kather on him that brought thee, than 
on thee, 

Our scorn is settled. I would help thee. 
Come ! 

Mute still ? 

I know that shame is ever dumb, 

And ever weak ; but here is no re- 
proach. 

Listen ! Thy fate is given to thy hands. 

Art thou a woman, and dost scorn con- 
tempt ? 

Art thou a captive, and dost loathe 
these bonds ? 

Art thou courageous, as men call thy 
race ? 

Or, helpless art thou, and wouldst over- 
come ? 

If so, — look up ! For there is hope 
for thee. 

Give me thy hand — 

CASSANDRA. 

Pah ! there is blood on it ! 

CLYTEMNESTKA. 

"What is she raving of ? 



Is evil. 



CASSANDRA. 

The place, from old, 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Ay, there is a sickness, here, 
That needs the knife. 

CASSANDRA. 

0, hoi'rible ! blood ! blood I 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

I see you are a Phrygian to the bone '. 
Coward and slave ! be so forevermore ! 

CASSANDRA. 

Apollo ! Apollo ! blood ! blood ! 
The whole place swims with it ! The 

slippery steps 
Steam with the fumes ! The rank air 

smells of blood ! 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Heed her not ! for she knows not what 

she says. 
This is some falling sickness of the soul. 
Her fever frights itself. 

CASSANDRA. 

It reeks ! it reeks ! 
It smokes ! it stifles ! blood ! blood, 
everywhere ! 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

See, he hath brought this mad woman 

from Troy, 
To shame our honor, and insult our care. 
Look to her, friends, my hands have 

other work ! 

CHORUS. 

Alas, the House of Tantalus is doomed ! 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

The King sleeps — like an infant. His 

huge strength 
Holds slumberthrice as close as othermen. 
How well he sleeps ! Make garlands for 

the Gods. 
I go to watch the couch. Cull every 

flower. 
And honor all the tutelary fanes 
With sacrifice as ample as our joy. 
Lest some one say we reverence not the 

Gods ! 



330 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



CHORUS. 

O doomed House and race ! 

toilsome, toilsome horsemanship 

Of Pelops ; that ill omen brought to us ! 

For since the drowned Myrtilus 

Did from his golden chariot slip 

To his last sleep, below the deep, 

Nothing of sad calamitous disgrace 

Hath angry Heaven ceased to heap 

On this unhappy House of Tantalus. 

Not only upon sacred leaves of old. 

Preserved in many a guarded, mystic 

fold, 
But sometimes, too, enrolled 
On tablets fair 
Of stone or brass, with quaint and 

curious care, 
In characters of gold. 
And many an ii-on-bound, melancholy 

book, 
The wisdom of the wise is writ ; 
And hardly shall a man. 
For all he can. 
By painful, slow degrees, 
And nightly reveries. 
Of long, laborious thought, grow learned 

in these. 
But who, that reads a woman's wily 

look, 
Shall say what evil hides, and lurks in 

it? 
Or fathom her false wit ? 
For by a woman fell the man 
Who did Nemsea's pest destroy, 
And the brinded Hydra slew, 
And many other wonders wrought. 
By a woman, fated Troy 
Was overset, and fell to naught. 
Royal Amphiaraus, too, 
All his wisdom could not free 
From his false Eriphyle, 
Whom a golden necklace bought, — 
So has it been, and so shall be, 
Ever since the world began ! 

woman, woman, of what other earth 
Hath daedal Nature moulded thee ? 
Thou art not of our clay compact, 
Not of our common clay ; — 
But when the painful world in labor 

lay — 
Labor long — and agony, 
In her heaving throes distract, 
And vext with angry Heaven's red ire, 
Nature, kneading snow and fire, 
In thy mystic being pent 
Each contrary element. 



Life and death within thee blent : 
All despair and all desire : 
There to mingle and ferment. 
While, mad midwives, at thy birth, 
Furies mixt with Sirens bent, 
Inter-wreathing snakes and smiles, -* 
Fairest dreams and falsest guiles. 

Such a splendid mischief thou ! 
With thy light of languid eyes ; 
And thy bosom of pure snow : 
And thine heart of fire below. 
Whose red light doth come and go 
Ever o'er thy changeful cheek 
When love-whispers tremble weak : 
Thj' warm lips and pensive sighs, 
That the breathless spirit bow : 
And the heavenward life that lies 
In the still serenities 
Of thy snowy, airy brow, — 
Thine ethereal airy brow. 
Such a splendid mischief, thou ! 
What are all thy witcheries ? 
All thine evil beauty ? All 
Thy soft looks, and subtle smiles ? 
Tangled tresses ? Mad caresses ? 
Tendernesses ? Tears and kisses ? 
And the long look, between whiles, 
That the helpless heart beguiles. 
Tranced in such a subtle thrall ? 
What are all thy sighs and smiles ? 
Fairest dreams and falsest guiles ! 
Hoofs to horses, teeth to lions, 
Horns to bulls, and speed to hares, 
To the fish to glide through waters, 
To the bird to glide through airs. 
Nature gave : to men gave courage. 
And the use of brazen spears. 
What was left to give to woman, 
All her gifts thus given ? Ah, tears. 
Smiles, and kisses, whispers, glances. 
Only these ; and merely beauty ■ 
On her arched brows unfurled. 
And with these she shatters lances, 
All unarmed binds armed Duty, 
And in triumph drags the world ! 



XVI. SEMI-CHORUS. CHORUS. 
CASSANDRA. AGAMEMNON. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. ^GISTHUS. 

SEMI-CHOETTS, 

Break off, break off ! It seems I heard 
a cry. 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



331 



CHORUS. 

Surely one called within the house. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Stand by. 

CHORUS. 

The Prophetess is troubled. Look, her 

eye 
EoUs fearfully. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Now all is husht once more. 

CHORUS. 

I hear the feet of some one at the door. 

AGAMEMNON (within). 

Murderess ! tJh, oh ! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

The house is filled with shrieks. 

CHORUS. 

The sound deceives or that was the 
King's voice. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

The voice of Agamemnon ! 

AGAMEMNON (within). 

Ai ! ai ! ai ! 

CASSANDRA. 

The bull is in the toils. 

AGAMEMNON (within). 

I will not die ! 

^GISTHUS (within). 

O Zeus ! he will escape. 

CLYTEMNESTRA (within). 
He has it. 

AGAMEMNON (within). 

Ai ! ai ! 
CHORUS. 
Some hideous deed is being done within. 
Burst in the doors ! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

I cannot open them. 
Barred, barred within ! 



CASSANDRA. 

The axe is at the bull. 



Call the elders. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

And the People. Argives ! Argives ! 
Alinon ! Alinon ! 

CHORUS. 

You to the Agora. 

SEMI-CHORUS, 

To the temples we. 

CHORUS. 

Hearken, maidens ! 



This way. 



SEMI-CHORUS. 
CHORUS. 

That way. 



SEMI-CHORUS. 

Quick ! quick ! 

CASSANDRA. 

Seal my sight, Apollo ! Apollo ! 



To the Agora ! 



SEMI-CHORUS. 

To the temples ! 



Haste ! haste ! 



AGAMEMNON (within). 
Stabbed, oh! 

CHORUS. 

Too late ! 

CASSANDRA. 

The bull is bellowing. 

^GISTHUS (within). 
Thrust there again. 

CLYTEMNESTRA (within). 

One blow has done it all. 



332 



CLYTEMNESTKA. 



^GISTHTJS (within). 
Is it quite through ? 

CLYTEMNESTRA (within). 

He will uot move again. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Heaven and Earth ! My heart stands 

still with awe ! 
Where will this murder end ? 

CHORUS. 

Hold ! some one comes ! 



XVII. ELECTRA. ORESTES. CHO- 
RUS. APHOCIAN. 

ELECTRA (leading ORESTES). 
Save US ! save him — Orestes ! 

CHORUS. 

What has fallen ? 

ELECTRA. 

An evil thing. 0, we are fatherless ! 

CHORUS. 

Ill-starred Electra ! But how fell this 
chance ? 

ELECTRA. 

Here is no time for words, — scarce 

time for flight. 
When from his royal bath the King 

would rise, — 
Th^t devilish woman, lying long in lurk, 
Behind him crept, with stealthy feet un- 
heard, 
And flung o'er all his limbs a subtle web. 
Caught in the craft of whose contrived 

folds, 
Stumbling, he fell, ^gisthus seized a 

sword ; 
But halted, half irresolute to strike. 
My father, like a lion in the toils, 
Upheaved his head, and, writhing, 

roared with wrath, 
And angry shame at this infernal snare. 
Almost he rent the blinding nets atwain. 
But Clytemnestra on him flung herself. 
And c&ught the steel, and smit him 

through the ribs. 
He slipped, and reeled. She drove the 

weapon through. 
Piercing the heart ! 



CHORUS. 

woe ! what tale is this ? 

ELECTRA. 

I, too, with him, had died, but for this 

chUd, 
And that high vengeance which is yet 

to be. 

CHORUS. 

Alas ! then Agamemnon is no more, 
Who stood, but now, amongst us, full 

of life, 
Crowned with achieving years ! The 

roof and cope 
Of honor, fallen ! Where shall we lift 

our eyes ? 
Where set renown ? Where garner up 

our hopes ? 
All worth is dying out. The land is 

dark. 
And Treason looks abroad in the eclipse. 
He did not die the death of men that 

live 
Such life as he lived, fall'n among his 

peers. 
Whom the red battle rolled away, whUe 

yet 
The shout of Gods was ringing through 

and through them ; 
But Death that feared to front him in 

full field. 
Lurked by the hearth and smote him 

from behind. 
A mighty man is gone. A mighty grief 
Remains. And rumor of undying deeds 
For song and legend, to the end of time ! 
What tower is strong ? 

ELECTRA. 

friends — if friends you be — 
For who shall say where falsehood festers 

not. 
Those being falsest, who should most be 

true? 
Where is that Phocian ? Let him take 

the boy. 
And bear him with him to his master's 

court. 
Else wUl ^gisthus slay him^ 



CHORUS. 



Fear you not ? 



Orphaned one, 



ORESTES. 

I am Agamemnon's son. 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



333 



CHORirS. 

Therefore shouldst fear — 

ORESTES. 

And therefore cannot fear. 

rHOCIAN. 

I heard a cry. Did any call ? 

CHORUS. 

0, well ! 
You happen this way in the need of 
time. 

ELECTRA. 

loyal stranger, Agamemnon's child 
Is fatherless. This boy appeals to you. 
O save him, ^ave him from his father's 
foes ! 

PHOCIAN. 

Unhappy lady, what wild words are 
these ? 

ELECTRA. 

The house runs blood, ^gisthus, like 

a fiend, 
Is raging loose, his weapon dripping 

gore. 



The king is dead. 



PHOCIAN. 

Is dead ! 

ELECTRA. 

Dead. 



Do I dream ? 

ELECTRA. 
Such dreams are dreamed in hell — such 

dreams — no ! 
Is not the earth as solid — heaven 

above — 
The sun in heaven — and Nature at her 

work — 
And men at theirs — the same ? 0, 

no ! no dream ! 
We shall not wake — nor he ; though 

the Gods sleep ! 
Unnaturally murdered — 



PHOCIAN. 

Murdered ! 



- ELECTRA. 



Ay. 

And the sun blackens not ; the world is 
green ; 

The fires of the red west are not put out. 

Is not the cricket singing in the grass ? 

And the shy lizard shooting through the 
leaves ? 

I hear the ox low in the labored field. 

Those swallows build, and are as gar- 
rulous 

High up i' the towers. Yet I speak the 
truth, 

By Heaven I speak the truth — 

PHOCIAN. 

Yet more, vouchsafe 
How died the king ? 

ELECTRA. 

0, there shall be a time 
For words hereafter. While we dally 

here, 
Fate haunts, and hounds us. Friend, 

receive this boy. 
Bear him to Strophius. All this tragedy 
Relate as best you may ; it beggars 

speech. 
Tell him a tower of hope is fallen this 

day— 
A name in Greece — 

PHOCTAN. 

— But you — 

ELECTRA. 

Away ! away ! 
Destruction posts apace, while we delay. 

PHOCIAN. 

Come then ! 

ELECTRA. 

I dare not leave my father's hearth, 
For who would then do honor to his urn ? 
It may be that my womanhood and 

youth 
May help me here. It may be I shall fall. 
And mix my own with Agamemnon's 

blood. * 

No matter. On Orestes hangs the hope 
Of all this House. Him save for better 

days. 
And ripened vengeance. 



334 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



PHOCIAN. 

Noble-hearted one ! 
Come then, last offspring of this fated 

race. 
The future calls thee ! 



OEESTES. 



Sister ! Sister ! 



Go! 



ORESTES. 



Sister ! 

ELECTEA. 

my brother ! . . . One last kiss, — 
One last long kiss, — how I have loved 

thee, boy ! 
Was it for this I nourished thy young 

years 
With stately tales, and legends of the 

gods? 
For this ? . . . How the past crowds upon 

me ! Ah — 
Wilt thou recall, in lonely, lonely hours. 
How once we sat together on still eves, 
(Ah me !) and brooded on all serious 

themes 
Of sweet, and high, and beautiful, and 

good, 
That throng the ancient years, Alcme- 

na's son. 
And how his life went oiit in fire on CEta ; 
Or of that bright-haired wanderer after 

fame, 
That brought the great gold-fleece across 

the sea, 
And left a name in Colchis ; or we spake 
Of the wise Theseus, councils, kingdoms, 

thrones, 
And laws in distant lands ; or, later still. 
Of the great leaguer set round Ilion, 
And what heart-stirring tidings of the 

war 
Bards brought to Hellas. But when I 

would breathe 
Thy father's name, didst thou not grasp 

my hand. 
And glorious deeds shone round us like 

the stars 
That lit the dark world from a great way 

off, 
Ajid died up into heaven, among the 

Gods ? 

OEESTES. 

Sister, Sister ! 



Away ! away ! 



ELECTEA. 

Ah, too long we linger. 

PHOCIAN. 

Come ! 



CHOEXTS. 

Heaven go with thee ! 
To Crissa points the hand of Destiny. 

ELECTEA. 

boy, on thee Fate hangs an awful 

weight 
Of retribution ! Let thy father's ghost 
Forever whisper in thine ear. Be strong. 
About thee, yet unborn, thy mother wove 
The mystic web of life in such-like form 
That Agamemnon's spirit in thine eyes 
Seems living yet. His seal is set on 

thee ; 
And Pelops' ivory shoulder marks thee 

his. 
Thee, child, nor contests on the Isthmian 

plain, 
Nor sacred apple, nor green laurel-leaf. 
But graver deeds await. Forget not, 

son. 
Whose blood, unwashed, defiles thy 

mother's doors ! 

CHOETTS. 

haste ! I hear a sound within the 
house. 

ELECTEA. 

Farewell, then, son of Agamemnon ! 



PHOCIAN. 



Come ! 



XVIII. ELECTEA. CHORUS. iEGIS- 
THUS. 

ELECTEA. 

Gone ! gone ! Ah saved ! . . . fool, 
thou missest, here ! 

CHORUS. 

Alas, Electra, whither wilt thou go ? 

ELECTEA. 

Touch me not ! Come not near me 1 

Let me be ! 
For this day, which I hoped for, is not 

mine. 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



335 



CHORtrS. 

See how she gathers round her all her 

robe, 
And sits apart with grief. 0, can it be 
Great Agamemnon is among the shades ? 

FLECTRA. 

Would I had grasped his skirt, and fol- 
lowed him ! 



Alas ! there is an eminence of joy. 
Where Fate grows dizzj', being mounted 

there. 
And so tilts over on the other side ! 

fallen, fallen 

The tower, vAich stood so high ! 

Whose base and girth were strong i' the 

earth, 
Whose head was in the sky ! 
falPn that tower of noble power, 
That filled up every eye ! 

He stood so sure, that noble tower ! 
To make secure, and fill with power. 
From length to length, the land of 

Greece ! 
In whose strong bulwarks all men saw. 
Garnered on the lap of law. 
For dearth or danger, spears of war. 
And harvest sheaves of peace ! 
fall'n, fall'n that lofty tower, — 
The loftiest tower in Greece ! 

His brows he lift above the noon. 
Filled with the day, a noble tower ! 
Who took the sunshine and the shower, 
And flung them back in merry scorn. 
Who now shall stand when tempests 

lower ? 
He was the first to catch the morn, 
The last to see the moon. 
friends, he was a noble tower ! 
friends, and fall'n so soon ! 

Ah, well ! lament ! lament ! 
His walls are rent, his bulwarks bent. 
And stooped that crested eminence, 
Which stood so high for our defence ! 
For our defence, — to guard, and fence 
From all alarm of hurt and harm, 
Tlie fulness of a land's content ! 
fall'n away, fall'n at midday, 
And set before the sun is down, 
The liighest height of our renown ! 



overthrown, the ivory throne ! 
The spoils of war, the golden crown, 
And chiefest honor of the state ! 
mourn with me ! what tower is free 
From over-topping destiny ? 
What strength is strong to fate ? 

mourn with me ! when shall we see 
Another such, so good, so great ? 
Another such, to guard the state * 

^GISTHUS. 

He should have stayed to shout through. 

Troy, or bellow 
WithbuUsinlda — 

CHORUS. 

Look ! jEgisthus comes ! 
Like some lean tiger, having dipt in 

blood 
His dripping fangs, and hot athirst for 

more. 
His lurid eyeball rolls, as though it 

swam 
Through sanguine films. He staggers, 

drunk with rage 
And crazy mischief. 

.aiGISTHUS. 

Hold ! let no one stir ! 

1 charge you, all of you, who hear me 

speak, 
Where may the boy Orestes lie concealed ? 
I hold the life of each in gage for his. 
If any know where now he hides from 

us. 
Let him beware, not rendering trae re- 

ply! 

CHORUS. 

The boy is fled — 

ELEGTRA. 

— is saved ! 
^GISTHUS. 

Electra here ! 
How mean you ? What is this ? 

ELECTRA. 

Enough is left 
Of Agamemnon's blood to drown you in. 

iEGISTHUS. 

You shall not trifle with me, by my 

beard ! 
There 's peril in this pastime. Where 's 

the boy ? 



336 



CLYTEMNESTEA. 



ELECTRA. 

Half-way to Phocis, Heaven helping liini. 

^GISTHUS. 

By the black Styx ! 



Take not the oath of Gods, 
Who art but half a man, blaspheming 
coward ! 

^GISTHUS. 

But you, by Heaven, if this be a sword, 
Shall not be any more — 

ELECTRA. 

A slave to thee, 
Blundering bloodshedder, though thou 

boast thyself 
As huge as Ossa piled on Pelion, 
Or anything but that weak wretch thou 

art! 
0, thou hast only half done thy black 

work ! 
Thou shouldst have slain the young lion 

with the old. 
Look that he come not back, and find 

himself 
Ungiven food, and stiU the lion's share ! 

^GISTHUS. 

Insolent ! but I know to seal thy lips — 

ELECTRA. 

— For thou art only strong among the 

weak. 
We know thou hast an aptitude for blood. 
To take a woman's is an easy task. 
And one well worthy thee. 

aiGISTHUS. 

0, but for words ! 

ELECTRA. 

Yet, couldst thou feed on all the noble 

blood 
Of godlike generations on this earth, 
It should not help thee to a hero's heart. 

CHORUS. 

peace, Electra, but for pity's sake ! 
Heap not his madness to such dangerous 
heights. 



ELECTRA. 

I will speak out my heart's scorn, though 
I die. 

.EGISTHUS. 

And thou shalt die, but not till I have 

tamed 
That stubborn spirit to a wish for life. 

CHORUS. 

cease, infatuate ! I hear the Queen. 

[By a movement of the -Eccyclema the palace 
is thrown open, and discovers Clytem- 
NESTRAstoTwfimjr over the body o/ Agamem- 
non. 



XIX. CLYTEMNESTEA. CHOEUS. 
iEGISTHUS. ELECTEA. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Argives ! behold the man who was your 
King! 



Dead ! dead I 



CHORUS. 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Not I, but Fate hath dealt this blow. 

CHORUS. 

Dead ! dead, alas ! look where he lies, 

friends ! 
That noble head, and to be brought so 

low ! 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

He who set light by woman, with blind 
scorn. 

And held her with the beasts we sacri- 
fice, 

Lies, by a woman sacrificed himself. 

This is high justice which appeals to you. 

CHORUS. 

Alas ! alas ! I know not words for this. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

We are but as the instrument of heaven. 
Our work is not design, but destiny. 
A God directs the lightning to its fall ; 
It smites and slays, and passes other- 
where, 
Pure in itself, as when, in light, it left 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



337 



The bosom of Olympus, to its end. 

In this cold heart the wrong of all the 

past 
Lies buried. I avenged, and I forgive. 
Honor him yet. He is a king, though 

fallen. 

CHOKTJS. 

0, how she sets Virtue's own crest on 

Crime, 
And stands there stern as Fate's wild arbi- 

tress ! 
Not any deed could make her less than 

great. 

(CLYTEMNESTRA dssceuds the steps, and lays 
Mr hand on the arm of JSgisthus.) 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Put up the sword ! Enough of blood is 
spilt. 

.aiGISTHUS. 

Hist ! 0, not half, — Orestes is escaped. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Sufficient for the future be that thought. 
What 's done is well done. "What 's un- 
done — yet more : 
Something still saved from crime. 

JEGISTHUS. 

This lion's whelp 
Will work some mischief yet. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

He is a child — 
— Our own — we will but war upon the 

strong. 
Not upon infants. Let this matter rest. 

^GISTHTJS. 

0, ever, in the wake of thy great will 

Let me steer sure ! and we will leave 
behind 

Great tracks of light upon the wonder- 
ing world. 

If but you err not here — 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

These pale-eyed groups ! 
See how they huddle shuddering, and 

stand round ; 
As when some mighty beast, the brin- 
dled lord 

22 



Of the rough woodside, sends his wild 

death-roar 
Up the shrill caves, the meaner denizens 
Of ancient woods, shy deer, and timorous 

hares, 
Peer from the hairy thickets, and shrink 

back. 
We feared the lion, and we smote him 

down. 
Now fear is over. Shall we turn aside 
To harry jackals ? Laugh ! we have 

not laughed 
So long, I think you have forgotten how ! 
Have we no right to laugh like other 

men ? 
Ha ! Ha ! I laugh. Now it is time t? 
" I 



CHORUS. 

0, awful sight ! Look where the bloody 

sun. 
As though with Agamemnon he were 

slain. 
Runs reeking, lurid, down the palace 

floors ! 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

my beloved ! Now will we reign 

sublime. 
And set our foot upon the neck of For- 

tune ! 
And, for the rest — 0, much remains ! 

— for you, 

(To the Chorus.) 
A milder sway, if mildly you submit 
To our free service and supremacy. 
Nor tax, nor toll, to carry dim results 
Of distant war beyond the perilous seas. 
But gateless justice in our halls of state, 
And peace in all the borders of our land ! 
For you — 

{To Ei.ECTRA, who has thrown herself upon the 
body 0/ Agamemnon.) 

ELECTRA. 

0, hush ! What more remains to me, 
But this dead hand, whose clasp is cold 

in mine ? 
And all the baffled memory of the past, 
Buried with him ? What more ? 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

— A mother's heart, 
If you will come to it. Free coniidence. 
A liberal share in all our future hope. 



338 



CLYTEMNESTEA. 



Now, more than ever — mutually weak — 
We stand in need, each of the other's 

love. 
Our love ! it shall not sacrifice thee, 

child. 
To wanton whims of ^ar, as he, of old, 
Did thy dead sister. If you will not 

these, 
But answer love with scorn, why then — 



— What then ? 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Safe silence. And permission to forget. 



XX. CHORUS. SEMI-CHORUS. 
CLYTEMNESTRA. CASSANDRA. 
^GISTHUS. 

CHORUS. 

What shall we say ? What has been 

done ? 
Shed no tear ! O, shed no tear ! 
Hang up his harness in the sun ; 
The hooked car, and barbed spear ; 
And all war's adamantine gear 
Of trophied spoils ; for all his toils 
Are over, alas ! are over, and done ! 
What shall we say ? What has been 

done ? 
Shed no tear ! 0, shed no tear ! 
But keep solemn silence all, 
As befits when heroes fall ; 
Solemn as his fame is ; sad 
As his end was ; earth shall wear 
Mourning for him. See, the sun 
Blushes red for what is done ! 
And the wild stars, one by one, 
Peer out of the lurid air, 
And shrink back with awe and fear, 
Shuddering, for what is done. 
When the night comes, dark and dun 
As our sorrow ; blackness far 
Shutting out the crimson sun ; 
Turn his face to the moon and star, — 
These are bright as his glories are, — 
And great Heaven shall see its son ! 
What shall we say ? What has been 

done ? 
Shed no tear ! 0, shed no tear ! 
Gather round him, friends ! Look here ! 
All the wreaths which he hath won 
In the race that he hath run, — 
Laurel garlands, every one ! 



These are things to think upon. 

Mourning till the set of sun, — 

Till the mourning moon appear. 

Now the wreaths which Fame begun 

To uplift, to crown his head. 

Memory shall seize upon. 

And make chaplets for his bier. 

He shall have wreaths though he be 

dead! 
But his monument is here. 
Built up in our hearts, and dear 
To all honor. Shed no tear ! 
0, let not any tear be shed ! 

SEMI-CHORTTS. 

Look at Cassandra ! she is stooping down. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

She dips and moves her fingers in the 
blood ! 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Look to her ! There 's a wildness in her 

eye ! 



SEMI-CHORUS. 

What does she ? 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

0, in Agamemnon's blood, 
She hath writ Orestes on the palace steps ! 



.^gisthus ! 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 
.EGISTHUS. 

Queen and bride ! 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

We have not failed. 



Come, venerable, ancient Night ! 
From sources of the western stars, 
In darkest shade that fits this woe. 
Consoler of a thousand griefs. 
And likest death unalterably calm. 
We toil, aspire, and sorrow. 
And in a little while shall cease. 
For we know not whence we came, 
And who can insure the morrow ? 
Thou, eternally the same. 
From of old, in endless peace 
Eternally survivest ; 
Enduriug on through good and ill. 



CLYTEMNESTRA. 



339 



Coeval with the Gods ; and still 

In thine own silence livest. 

Our days thou leadest home 

To the great Whither which has no 

Again ! 
Impartially to pleasure and to pain 
Thou sett'st the bourn. To thee shall all 

things come. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

But, if he cease to love me, what is 
gained ? 

CASSANDRA. 
With wings darkly spreading, 
Like ravens to the carcass 
Scenting far off the savor of blood, 
From shores of the unutterable River, 
They gathei^nd swoop, 
They waver, they darken. 
From the fangs that raven, 
From the eyes that glare 
Intolerably fierce, 
Save me, Apollo ! 
Ai ! Ai ! Ai ! 
Alinon ! Alinon ! 

Blood, blood ! and of kindred nature. 
Which the young wolf returning 
Shall dip his fangs in, 
Thereby accursedly 
Imbibing madness ! 

CHORUS, 

The wild woman is uttering strange 

things 
Fearful to listen to, 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Within the house 
Straightway confine her, 
There to learn wisdom. 



^GISTHUS, 

Orestes — 0, this child's life now out- 
weighs 
That mighty ruin, Agamemnon dead ! 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

^gisthus, dost thou love me ? 



As my life ! 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Thou lovest me ! love, we have not 

failed. 
Give me thy hand ! So . , . lead me to 

the house. 
Let me lean on thee, I am very weak. 

CHORUS. 
Only Heaven is high. 
Only the Gods are great. 
Above the searchless sky. 
In unremoved state, 
They from their golden mansions 
Look over the lands, and the seas ; 
The ocean's wide expansions, 
And the earth's varieties : 
Secure of their supremacy. 
And sure of affluent ease. 
Who shall say " I stand ! " nor fall ? 
Destiny is over all ! 
Rust will crumble old renown. 
Bust and column tumble down ; 
Keep and castle ; tower and town ; 
Throne and sceptre ; crest and crown. 
Destiny is over all ! 
One by one, the pale guests fall 
At lighted feast, in palace hall ; 
And feast is turned to funeral. 
Who shall say " I stand ! " nor fall? 
Destiny is over aU ! -^ 



340 GOOD-NIGHT IN THE PORCH. 



GOOD-NIGHT lE^ THE PORCH. 

A LITTLE longer in the light, love, let me be. The air is warm. 

I hear the cuckoo's last good-night tioat from the copse below the Farm. 

A little longer. Sister sweet, — your hand in mine, — on this old seat. 

In yon red gable, which the rose creeps round and o'er, your casement shines 

Against the yellow west, o'er those forlorn and solitary pines. 

The long, long day is nearly done. How silent all the place is grown ! 

The stagnant levels, one and all, are burning in the distant marsh — 

Hark ! 't was the Inttern's parting call. The frogs are out : with murnnirs harsh 

The low reeds vibrate. See ! the sun catches the long pools one by one. 

A moment, and those orange flats will turn dead gray or lurid white. 
Look up ! o'erhead the winnowing bats are come and gone, eluding sight. 
The little worms are out. The snails begin to move down shining trails, 

With slow pink cones, and soft wet horns. The garden-bowers are dim with dew. 
With s]iai'kling drops the white-rose thorns aie twinkling, where the sun slips 

thi-ough 
Those reefs of coral buds hung free below the pui-ple Judas-tree. 

From the warm upland comes a gust made fragrant with the brown hay there. 
The meek cows, with their white horns thrust above the hedge, stand still and 

stare. 
The steaming horses from the wains droop o'er the tank their plaited manes. 

And o'er yon hillside brown and barren (where you and I as children played, 
Starting the rabbit to his warren), I hoar the sandy, shrill cascade 
Leap down upon the vale, and spill his heart out round the muffled mill. 

can it be for nothing only that God has shown his world to me ? 

Or but to leave the heart more lonely with loss of beauty . . . can it be ? 

closer, closer, Sister dear . . . nay, I have kist away that tear. 

God bless you, Dear, for that kind thought which only upon tears could rise ! 
God bless you for the love that sought to hide them in those drooping eyes, 
Whose lids I kiss ! . . . poor lids, so red ! but let my kiss fall there instead. 

Yes, sad indeed it seems, each night, — and sadder. Dear, for your sweet sake ! 
To watch the last low lingering light, and know not where the morn may break. 
To-night we sit together here. To-morrow night Avill come . . . ah, where ? 

child ! howe'er assured be faith, to say farewell is fraught with gloom. 
When, like one flower, the germs of death and genius ripen toward the tomb ; 
And earth each day, as some fond face at parting, gains a graver grace. 

There 's not a flower, there 's not a tree in this old garden where we sit, 
But what some fragrant memory is closed and folded up in it. 
To-night the dog-rose smells as wild, as fresh, as when I was a child. 

'T is eight years since (do you forget ?) we set those lilies near the wall : 
You were a blue-ej'ed child : even yet I seem to see the ringlets fall, — 
The golden ringlets, blown behind your shoulders in the merry wind. 



GOOD-NIGHT IN THE PORCH. 341 

Ah, me ! old times, they cling, they cling ! And oft by yonder green old gate 

The field shows through, in morns of spring, an eager boy, I paused elate 

"With all sweet fancies loosed from school. And oft, you know, when eves were cool, 

I In summer-time, and through the trees young gnats began to be about, 
With some old book upon your knees 't was here you watched the stars come out. 
"While oft, to please me, you sang through some foolish song I made ibr you. 

And there 's my epic — I began when life seemed long, though longer art — 
And all the glorious deeds of man made golden riot in my heart — 
Eight books ... it will not number nine ! I die before my heroine. 

Sister ! they say that drowning men in one wild moment can recall 

Their whole life long, and feel again the pain — the bliss — that thronged it all: — 

Last night those phantoms of the Past again came crowding round me fast. 

Near morning, when the lamp was low, against the wall they seemed to flit ; 
And, as tliQ^'avering light would glow or fall, they came and went with it. 
The ghost of boyhood seemed to gaze down the dark verge of vanisht days. 

Once more the garden where she walked on summer eves to tend her flowers. 
Once more the lawn where first we talked of future years in twilight hours 
Arose ; once more she seemed to pass before me in the waving grass 

To that old terrace ; her bright hair about her warm neck all undone, 

And waving on the balmy air, with tinges of the dying sun. 

Just one star kindling in the west : just one bird singing near its nest. 

So lovely, so beloved ! 0, fair as though that sun had never set 
"Which stayed upon her golden hair, in dreams I seem to see her yet ! 
To see her in that old green place, — the same husht, smiling, cruel face ! 

A little older, love, than you are now ; and I was then a boy ; 
And wild and wayward-hearted too ; to her my passion was a toy. 
Soon broken ! ah, a foolish thing, — a butterfly with crumpled wing ! 

Her hair, too, was like yours, — as bright, but with a warmer golden tinge : 
Her eyes, — a somewhat deeper light, and dreamed below a longer fringe : 
And still that strange grave smile she had stays in my heart and keeps it sad ! 

There 's no one knows it, truest friend, but you, for I have never breathed 
To other ears the frozen end of those spring-garlands Hope once wreathed ; 
And death will come before again I breathe that name untouched by pain. 

From little things — a star, a flower — that touched us with the self-same thought, 
My passion deepened hour by hour, until to that fierce heat 't was wrought, 
"Which, shrivelling over every nerve, crumbled the outworks of reserve. 

I told her then, in that wild time, the love I knew she long had seen ; 

The accusing pain that burned like crime, yet left me nobler than I had been ; 

"What matter with what words I wooed her ? She said I had misunderstood her. 

And something more — small matterwhat ! of friendship something — sister's love — 
She said that I was young — knew not my own heart — as the years would prove ^ 
She wished me happy — she conceived' an interest in me — and believed 



342 GOOD-NIGHT IN THE POECH. 

I should gi'ow up to something great — and soon forget her — soon forget 

This fancy — and congratulate my life she had released it, j'et — - 

"With more such words — a lie ! a lie ! She broke my heart, and flung it by ! 

A life's libation lifted up, from her proud lip she dashed untasted : 

There trampled lay love's costly cup, and in the dust the wine was wasted. 

She knew I could not pour such wine again at any other shrine. 

Then I remember a numb mood : mad murmurings of the words she said : 

A slow shame smouldering through my blood ; that surged and sung within my 

head : 
And drunken sunlights reeling through the leaves : above, the burnisht blue 

Hot on my eyes, — a blazing shield : a noise among the waterfalls : 

A free crow up the brown cornfield floating at will : faint shepherd-calls : 

And reapers reaping in the shocks of gold : and girls .with purple frocks : 

All which the more confused my brain : and nothing could I realize 

But the great fact of my own pain : I saw the fields : I heard the cries : 

The crow's shade dwindled up the hill : the world went on : my heart stood stiU. 

I thought I held in my hot hand my life crusht up : I could have tost 

The crumpled riddle from me, and laughed loud to think what I had lost. 

A bitter strength was in my mind : like Samson, when she scorned him — blind, 

And casting reckless arms about the props of life to hug them down, — 
A madman with his eyes put out. But all my anger was my own. 
I spared the worm upon my walk : I left the white rose on its stalk. 

All 's over long since. Was it strange that I was mad with grief and shame ? 
And I would cross the seas, and change my ancient home, my father's name ? 
In the wild hope, if that might be, to change my own identity ! 

T know that I was wrong : I know it was not well to be so wild. 

But the scorn stung so ! . . . Pity now could wound not ! . . . I have seen her child : 

It had the self-same eyes she had : their gazing almost made me mad. 

Dark violet eyes whose glances, deep with April hints of sunny tears, 
'Neath long soft lashes laid asleep, seemed all too thoughtful for her years ; 
As though from mine her gaze had caught the secret of some mournful thought. 

But, when she spoke her father's air broke o'er her . . . that clear confident voice \ 
Some happy souls there are, that wear their nature lightly ; these rejoice 
The world by living ; and receive from all men more than what they give. 

One handful of their buoyant chaff" exceeds our hoards of careful grain : 

Because their love breaks through their laugh, while ours is fraught with tender 

pain : 
The world, that knows itself too sad, is proud to keep some faces glad : 

And, so it is ! from such an one Misfortune softly steps aside 

To let him still walk in the sun. These things must be. I cannot chide. 

Had I been she I might have made the self-same choice. She shunned the shade. 

To some men God hath given laughter : but tears to some men He hath given : 
He bade us sow in tears, hereafter to harvest holier smiles in Heaven : 
And tears and smiles, they are His gift : both good, to smite or to uplift : 



GOOD-NIGHT IN THE PORCH. 343 

He knows His sheep : the wind and showers beat not too sharply the shorn lamb : 

His wisdom is more wise than ours : He knew my nature — what I am : 

He tempers smiles with tears : both good, to bear in time the Christian mood. 

yet — in scorn of mean relief, let Sorrow bear her heavenly fruit ! 

Better the wildest hour of grief than the low pastime of the brute ! , 

Better to weep, for He wept too, than laugh as every fool can do ! 

For sure, 't were best to bear the cross ; nor lightly fling the thorns behind ; ! 

Lest we grow happy by the loss of what was noblest in the mind. .1 

— Here — in the ruins of my years — Father, I bless Thee through these tears ! j 

It was in the far foreign lands this sickness came upon me first. \ 

Below strange suns, 'mid alien hands, this fever of the south was nurst, ; 
Until it reached some vital part, I die not of a broken heart. 

think not that ! If I could live . . . there 's much to live for — worthy life. | 
It is not for what fame could give — though that I scorn not — but the strife . ( 
Were noble for its own sake too. I thought that I had much to do — < 

But God is wisest ! Hark, again ! . . . 't was yon black bittern, as he rose l 

Against the wild light o'er the fen. How red your little casement glows ! i 

The night falls fast. How lonely. Dear, this bleak old house will look next year ! ] 

So sad a thought ? ... ah, yes ! I know it is not good to brood on this : ' 

And yet — such thoughts will come and go, unbidden. 'T is that you should miss, ] 

]\Iy darling, one familiar tone of this weak voice when I am gone. ^ 

And, for what 's past, — I will not say in what she did that all was right, | 

But all 's foi'given ; and I pray for her heart's welfare, day and night. ! 
All things are changed ! This cheek would glow even near hers but faintly now I 

Thou — God ! before whose sleepless eye not even in vain the sparrows fall, ^ 

Receive, sustain me ! Sanctify my soul. Thou know'st, Thou lovest all. •) 

Too weak to walk alone — I see Thy hand : I falter back to Thee. ' 

i 

Saved from the curse of time which throws its baseness on ns day by day : 1 

Its wretched joys, and worthless woes ; till all the heart is worn awaj'. i 

1 feel Thee near. I hold my breath, by the half-open doors of Death. \ 

And sometimes, glimpses from within of glory (wondrous sight and sound !) ! 

Float near me : — faces pure from sin ; strange music ; saints with splendor crowned : ! 

I seem to feel my native air blow down from some high region there, I 

And fan my spirit pure ; I rise above the sense of loss and pain : 
Faint forms that lured my childhood's eyes, long lost, I seem to find again : 

I see the end of all : I feel hope, awe, no language can reveal. | 

' 1 

Forgive me. Lord, if overmuch I loved that form Thou mad'st so fair ; i 

I know that Thou didst make her such ; and fair but as the flowers were, — j 

Thy work : her beauty -was but Thine ; the human less than the divine. \ 

i 

My life hath been one search for Thee 'mid thorns found red with Thy dear blood « 'J 

In many a dark Gethsemane I seemed to stand where Thou hadst stood : ' 

And, scorned in this world's Judgment-Place, at times, through tears, to catch j 

Thy face. j 

J 



344 



THE EARL'S EETUKN. 



Thou suffered' st here, and didst not fail : Thy bleeding feet these paths have trod : 
But Thou wert strong, and I am frail : and I am man, and Thou wert God. 
Be near me : keep me in Thy sight : or lay my soul asleep in light. 

O to be where the meanest mind is more than Shakespeare ! where one look 
Shows more than here the wise can find, though toiling slow from book to book ! 
Where life is knowledge : love is sure : and hope's brief promise made secure. 

dying voice of human praise ! the crude ambitions of my youth ! 

1 long to pour immortal lays ! great paeans of perennial Truth ! 

A larger work ! a loftier aim ! . . . and what are laurel-leaves, and fame ? 

And what are words ? How little these the silence of the soul express ! 

Mere froth, — the foam and flower of seas whose hungering waters heave and press 

Against the planets and the sides of night, — mute, yearning, mystic tides ! 

To ease the heart with song is sweet : sweet to be heard if heard by love. 

And you have heard me. When we meet shall we not sing the old songs above 

To grander music ? Sweet, one kiss. blest it is to die like this ! 

To lapse from being without pain : your hand in mine, on mine your heart : 
The unshaken faith to meet again that sheathes the pang with which we part : 
My head upon your bosom, sweet : your hand in mine, on this old seat ! 

So ; closer wind that tender arm . . . How the hot tears fall ! Do not weep, 
Beloved, but let your smile stay warm about me. " In the Lord they sleep." 
You know the words the Scripture saith ... light, Glory ! ... is this death ? 



THE EAEL^S EETUEI^. 



Eagged and tall stood the castle wall 
And the squires, at their sport, in the 

great South Court, 
Lounged all day long from stable to hall 
Laughingly, lazily, one and all. 
The land about was barren and blue, 
And swept by the wing of the wet sea- 
mew. 
Seven fishermen's huts on a shelly shore : 
Sand-heaps behind, and sand-banks be- 
fore : 
And a black champaign streaked white 

all through 
To a great salt pool which the ocean drew. 
Sucked into itself, and disgorged it again 
To stagnate and steam on the mineral 

plain ; 
Not a tree or a bush in the circle of sight. 
But a bare black thorn which the sea- 
winds had withered 
With the drifting scum of the surf and 
blight, 



And some patches of gray grass-land to 

the right. 
Where the lean red-hided cattle were 

tethered : 
A reef of rock wedged the water in twain, 
And a stout stone tower stood square to 

the main. 

And the flakes of the spray that were 

jerked away 
From the froth on the lip of the bleak 

blue sea 
Were sometimes flung by the wind, as it 

swung 
Over turret and terrace and balcony, . 
To the garden below where, in desolate 

corners 
Under the mossy green parapet there. 
The lilies crouched, rocking their white 

heads like mourners. 
And burned off the heads of the flowers 

that were 



THE EARL'S RETURN. 



345 



Pining and pale in their comfortless 

bowers, 
Dry-bushed with the sharp stubborn 

lavender, 
^nd paven with disks of the torn sun- 
flowers, 
Which, day by day, were strangled, and 

stripped 
Of their ravelling fringes and brazen 

bosses. 
And the hardy mary-buds nipped and 

ripped 
Into shreds for the beetles that lurked 

in the mosses. 

Here she lived alone, and from year to 
year 

She saw the black belt of the ocean appear 

At her cascinent each morn as she rose ; 
and each morn 

Her eye fell first on the bare black thorn. 

This was all : nothing more : or some- 
times on the shore 

The fishermen sang when the fishing was 
o'er ; 

Or the lowing of oxen fell dreamily, 

Close on the shut of the glimmering eves. 

Through some gusty pause in the moan- 
ing sea. 

When the pools were splashed pink by 
the thirsty beeves. 

Or sometimes, when the pearl-lighted 
morns drew the tinges 

Of the cold sunrise up their amber fringes, 

A white sail peered over the rim of the 
main. 

Looked all about o'er the empty sea. 

Staggered back from the fine line of 
white light again. 

And dropped down to another world 
silently. 

Then she breathed freer. With sicken- 
ing dread 

She had watched five pale young moons 
unfold 

From their notchy cavern in light, and 
spread 

To the fuller light, and again grow old, 

And dwindle away to a luminous shred. 

"He will not come back till the Spring 's 
green and gold. 

And I would that I with the leaves were 
dead. 

Quiet somewhere with them in the moss 
and the mould. 

When he and the summer come this 
way," she said. 



And when the dull sky darkened down 

to the edges, 
And the keen frost kindled in star and 

spar. 
The sea might be known by a noise on 

the ledges 
Of the long crags, gathering power from 

afar 
Through his roaring bays, and crawling 

back 
Hissing, as o'er the wet pebbles he 

dragged 
His skirt of foam frayed, dripping, and 

jagged. 
And reluctantly fell down the smooth 

hollow shell 
Of the night, whose lustrous surface of 

black 
In spots to an intense blue was worn. 
But later, when up on the sullen sea-bar 
The wide large-lighted moon had arisen, 
Where the dark and voluminous ocean 

grew luminous. 
Helping after her slowly one little shy 

star 
That shook blue in the cold, and looked 

forlorn. 
The clouds were troubled, and the wind 

from his prison 
Behind them leaped down with a light 

laugh of scorn ; 
Then the last thing she saw was that 

bare black thorn ; 
For the forked tree, as the bleak blast 

took it. 
Howled through it, and beat it, and bit 

it, and shook it. 
Seemed to visibly waste and wither and 



And the snow was lifted into the air 

Layer by layer. 

And turned into vast white clouds that 

flew 
Silent and fleet up the sky, and were 

riven 
And jerked into chasms which the sun 

leaped through. 
Opening crystal gulfs of a breezy blue 
Fed with rainy lights of the April heaven. 
From eaves and leaves the quivering dew 
Sparkled off ; and the rich earth, black 

and bare. 
Was starred with snowdrops everywhere ; 
And the crocus upturned its flame, and 

burned 
Here and there. 



346 



THE EAEL'S KETUKK 



"The Summer," she said, "coniith 

blithe and bold ; 
And the crocus is lit for her welcoming ; 
And the days will have garments of 

purple and gold ; 
But I would be left by the pale green 

Spring 
With the snowdrops somewhere under 

the mould ; 
For I dare not think what the Summer 

may bring." 

Pale she was as the bramble blooms 
That till the long fields with their faint 

perfumes, 
When the May-wind flits finely through 

sun-threaded showers, 
Breathing low to himself in his dim 

meadow-bowers. 
And her cheek each year was paler and 

thinner, 
And white as the pearl that was hung at 

her ear. 
As her sad heart sickened and pined 

within her, 
And failed and fainted from year to year. 
So that the Seneschal, rough and gray. 
Said, as he looked in her face one day, 
"St. Catherine save all good souls, I praj^, 
For our pale young lady is paling away. 
O the Saints," he said, smiling bitter 

and grim, 
"Know she's too fair and too good for 

him ! " 
Sometimes she walked on the upper leads, 
And leaned on the arm of the weather- 
worn Warden. 
Sometimes she sat'twixt themildewy beds 
Of the sea-singed flowers in the Pleas- 

aunce Garden. 
Till the rotting blooms that lay thick on 

the walks 
Were combed by the white sea-gust like 

a rake, 
And the stimulant steam of the leaves 

and stalks 
Made the coiled memory, numb and cold, 
That slept in her heart like a dreaming 

snake, 
Drowsily lift itself fold by fold, 
And gnaw and gnaw hungrily, half 

awake. 

Sometimes .she looked from the window 

below 
To the great South Court, and the 

squires, at their sport. 



Loungingly loitering to and fro. 

She heard the grooms there as they 

cursed one another. 
She heard the great bowls falling all day 

long 
In the bowling-alleys. She heard the 

song 
Of the shock-headed Pages that drank 

without stint in 
The echoing courts, and swore hard at 

each other. 
She saw the red face of the rough wooden 

Quintin, 
And the swinging sand-bag ready to: 

smother 
The awkward Sq^uire that missed the 

mark. 
And, all day long, between the dull 

noises 
Of the bowls, and the oaths, and the 

singing voices. 
The sea boomed hoarse till the skies 

were dark. 

But when the swallow, that sweet new- 
comer. 
Floated over the sea in the front of tht 

summer. 
The salt dry sands burned white, and 

sickened 
Men's sight in the glaring horn of tht 

bay; 
And all things that fasten, or float at 

ease 
In the silvery light of the leprous seas 
With the pulse of a hideous life were^ 

quickened. 
Fell loose from the rocks, and crawled 

crosswise away. 
Slippery sidelong crabs, half strangled 
By the white sea grasses in which they 

were tangled, 
And those half-living creatures, orbed,' 

rayed, and sharp-angled. 
Fan-fish, and star-fish, and polypous 

lamps, 
Hueless and boneless, that languidly 

thickened. 
Or flat-faced, or spiked, or ridged with 

humps. 
Melting ofl" from their clotted clusters 

and clumps 
Sprawled over the shore in the heat of 

the day. 

An hour before the sun was set 
A darker ripple rolled over the sea ; 



THE EAEL'S RETURN. 



347 



The white rocks quivered in wells of 

jet; 
And the great West, opening breathlessly 
Up all his inmost oiange, gave 
Hints of something distant and sweet 
That made her heart swell ; far up the 

wave 
The clouds that lay piled in the golden 

heat 
Were turned into types of the ancient 

mountains 
In an ancient land ; the weeds, which 

forlorn 
Waves were swaying neglectfully, 
By their sound, as they dipped into 

sparkles that dripped 
In the emerald creeks that ran up from 

the shore, 
Brought hack to her fancy the bubble 

of fountains 
Leaping and falling continually 
In valleys where she should wander no 



And when, over all of these, the night 
Among her mazy and milk-white signs, 
And clustered orbs, and zigzag lines. 
Burst into blossom of stars and light. 
The sea was glassy ; the glassy brine 
Was paven with lights, — blue, crystal- 
line, 
And emerald keen ; the dark world hung 
Balanced under the moon, and swung 
In a net of silver sparkles. Then she 
Rippled her yellow hair to her knee, 
Bared her warm white bosom and throat. 
And from the lattice leaned athirst. 
There, on the silence did she gloat 
With a dizzy pleasure steeped in pain, 
Half catching the soul of the secret that 

blended 
God with his starlight, then feeling it 

vain, 
Like a pining poet ready to burst 
With the weight of the wonder that 

grows in his brain. 
Or a nightingale, mute at the sound of 

a lute 
That is swelling and breaking his heart 

with its strain. 
Waiting, breathless, to die when the 

music is ended. 
For the sleek and beautiful midnight 

stole, 
Like a faithless friend, her secret care. 
Crept through each pore to the source 

of the soul. 



And mocked at the anguish which he 
found there. 

Shining away from her, scornful and 
fair 

In his pitiless beauty, refusing to share 

The discontent which he could not con- 
trol. 

The water-rat, as he skulked in the moat. 
Set all the slumbrous lilies afloat. 
And sent a sharp quick pulse along 
The stagnant light, that heaved and 

swung 
The leaves together. Suddenly 
At times a shooting star would spin 
Shell-like out of heaven, and tumble in. 
And burst o'er a city of stars ; but slie, 
As he dashed on the back of the zodiac. 
And quivered and glowed down arc and 

node. 
And split sparkling into infinity, 
Thought that some angel, in his reveries 
Thinking of earth, as he pensively 
Leaned over the star-grated balcony 
In his palace among the Pleiades, 
And grieved for the sorrow he saw in 

the land, 
Had dropped a white lily from his loose 

hand. 

And -thus many a night, steeped pale in 

the light 
Of the stars, when the bells and clocks 
Had ceased in the towers, and the sound 

of the hours 
Was eddying about in the rocks, 
Deep-sunken in bristling broidery be- 
tween the black oak Fiends sat she. 
And under the moth -flitted canopy 
Of the mighty antique bed in her cham- 
ber. 
With wild eyes drinking up the sea. 
And her white hands heavy with jewelry. 
Flashing as she loosed languidly 
Her satins of snow and of amber. 
And as, fold by fold, these were rippled 

and rolled 
To her feet, and lay huddled in ruins of 

gold. 
She looked like some pale spirit above 
Earth's dazzling passions forever flung 

by, 

Freed from the stains of an earthly love, 
And those splendid shackles of pride 

that press 
On the heart till it aches with the gor- 
geous stress. 



348 



THE EARL'S EETUEN. 



Quitting the base Past remorsefully. 
And so she put by the coil and care 
Of the day that lay furled like au idle 

weft 
Of heaped spots which a bright snake 

hath left, 
Or that dark house, the blind worm's lair, 
When the star-winged moth from the 

windows hath cre})t. 
Steeped her soul in a tearful prayer, 
Shrank into her naked self, and slept. 

And as she slumbered, starred and eyed 
All over with angry gems, at her side. 
The Fiends in the oak kept ward and 

watch ; 
And the querulous clock, on its rusty 

catch. 
With a quick tick, husky and thick. 
Clamored and clacked at her sharply. 

Thei'e was 
(Fronting a portrait of the Earl) 
A shrine with a dim gi'een lamp, and a 

cross 
Of glowing cedar wreathed with pearl, 
which the Arimathsean, so it was writ. 
When he came from the holy Orient, 
Had worn, with his prayers embalm- 
ing it. 
As with the San-Grael through the world 

he went. 
Underneath were relics and gems 
From many an antique king-saint's crown. 
And some ('t was avouched) from the 

dusk diadems 
And mighty rings of those Wise Kings 
That evermore sleep 'mid the marble 

stems, 
'Twixt chancel and chalice in God his 

palace, 
The marvel of Cologne Town. 
In a halo dim of the lamp all night 
Smiled the sad Virgin, holy and white, 
With a face as full of the soul's affliction 
As one that had looked on the Crucifix- 



At moonrise the land was suddenly 

brighter ; 
And through all its length and breadth 

the casement 
Grew large with a luminous strange 

amazement, 
And, as doubting in dreams what that 

sudden blaze meant, 
The. Lady's white face turned a thought 

whiter. 



Sometimes in sleep light finger-tips 
Touched her behind ; the pain, the bliss 
Of a long slow despairing kiss 
Doubled the heat on her feverish lips, 
And down to her heart's-heart smoulder- 
ing burned ; 
From lips long mute she heard her name ; . 
Sad dreams and sweet to vex her came ; 
Sighing, upon her pillow she turned, 
Like a weary waif on a weary sea 
That is heaving over continually, 
And finds no course, until for its sake 
The heart of the silence begins to ache. 
Unsoothed from slumber she awoke 
An hour ere dawn. The lamp burned 

faint. 
The Fiends glared at her out of the oak. 
She rose, and fell at the shrine of the 

Saint. 
There with clasped hands to the Mother. 
Of many sorrows, in sorrow, she prayed ; 
Till all things in the room melted into 

each other, 
And vanished in gyi'es of flickering shade, 
Leaving her all alone, with the face 
Of the Saint growing large in its one 

bright place. 
Then on a sudden, from far, a fear 
Through all her heart its horror drew, 
As of something hideous growing near. 
Cold fingers seemed roaming through her 

damp hair ; 
Her lips were locked. The power of 

praj'er 
Left her. She dared not turn. She knew. 
From his panel atilt on the wall up there. 
The grim Earl was gazing her through 

and through. 

But when the casement, a grisly square. 
Flickered with day, she flung it wide, 
And looked below. The shore was bare. 
In the mist tumbled the dismal tide. 
One ghastly pool seemed solid white ; 
The forked shadow of the thorn 
Fell through it, like a raven rent 
In the steadfast blank down which it went. 
The blind world slowly gathered sight. 
The sea was moaning on to morn. 

And the Summer into the Autumn 
waned. 

And under the watery Hyades 

The gray sea swelled, and the thick sky 
rained, 

And. the land was darkened by slow de- 
grees. 



THE EARL'S RETURN. 



349 



But oft, in the low West, the day 
Smouldering sent up a sullen tiame 
Along the dreary waste of" gray, 
As though in that red region lay. 
Heaped up, like Autumn weeds and 

flowers 
For fire, its thorny fruitless hours, 
And God said, "burn it all away ! " 

When all was dreariest in the skies. 
And the gusty tract of twilight muttered, 
A strange slow smile grew into her eyes. 
As though from a great way off it came 
And Avas weary ere down to her lips it 

fluttered. 
And turned into a sigh, or some soft name 
Whose syllables sounded likest sighs. 
Half smothered in sorrow before they 

we rap uttered. 
Sometimes, at night, a music was rolled — 
A ripple of silver harp-strings cold — 
From the halls below where the Minstrel 

sung. 
With the silver hair, and the golden 

tongue, 
And the eyes of passionless, peaceful blue 
(Like twilight which faint stars gaze 

through). 
Wise with the years whiiih no man knew. 
And first the music, as though the wings 
Of some blind angel were caught in the 

strings. 
Fluttered with weak endeavor : anon 
The uncaged heart of music grew bold 
And cautiously loosened, length by 

length. 
The golden cone of its great undertone, 
Like a strong man using mild language 

to one 
That is weaker, because he is sure of his 

strength. 

But once — and it was at the fall of the day, 
When she, if she closed her eyes, did seem 
To be wandering far, in a sort of dream. 
With some lost shadow, away, away, 
Down the heart of a golden land which 

she 
Remembered a great way over the sea. 
There came a trample of horses and men ; 
And a blowing of horns at the Castle- 
Gate ; 
Then a clattering noise ; then a pause ; 

and then. 
With the sudden jerk of a heavy weight. 
And a wrangling and jangling and clink- 
ing and clanking. 



The sound of the falling of cable and 

chain ; 
And a grumbling over the dewy planking 
That shrieked and sung with the weight 

and strain ; 
And the rough Seneschal bawled out in 

the hall, 
" The Earl and the Devil are come back 

again ! " 

Her heart stood still foramomentormore. 
Then suddenly tugged, and strained, and 

tore 
At the roots, which seemed to give way 

beneath. 
She rushed to the window, and held her 

breath. 
High up on the beach were the long 

black ships 
And the brown sails hung from the masts 

in strips ; 
And the surf was whirled over and over 

them. 
And swept them dripping from stern to 

stem. 
Within, in the great square court below, 
Were a hundred rough-faced men, or so. 
And one or two pale fair-haired slaves 
Whom the Earl had brought over the 

winter waves. 

There was a wringing of horny hands ; 

And a swearing of oaths ; and a great 
deal of laughter ; 

The grim Earl growling his hoarse com- 
mands 

To the Warden that followed him growl- 
ing after ; 

A lowing of cattle along the wet sands ; 

And a plashing of hoofs on the slippery 
rafter. 

As the long-tailed black-maned horses 
each 

Went over the bridge from the gray sea- 
beach. 

Then quoth the grim Earl, "fetch me a 

stoop ! " 
And they brought him a great bowl that 

dripped from the brim. 
Which he seized upon with a satisfied 

whoop. 
Drained, and flung at the head of him 
That brought it ; then, with a laugh like 

a howl, 
Stroked his beard ; and strode in through 

the door with a growl. 



350 



THE EAEL'S EETUKK 



Meanwhile the pale lady grew white and 

whiter, 
As the poplar pales when the keen winds 

smite her : 
And, as the tree sways to the gust, and 

heaves 
Quick ripples of white alarm up the 

leaves. 
So did she seem to shrink and reel 
From the casement — one quiver from 

head to heel 
Of whitest fear. For she heard below, 
On the creaking stairway loud and slow, 
Like drops that plunge audibly down 

from the thunder 
Into a sea that is groaning under, 
The heavy foot of the Earl as he mounted 
Step after step to the turret : she counted 
Step after step, as he hastened or halted ; 
Now clashing shrill through the arch- 
ways vaulted; 
Now mufiled and thick ; now loud, and 

more 
Loud as he came near the Chamber door. 
Then there fell, with a rattle and shock. 
An iron glove on the iron lock, 
And the door burst open — the Earl burst 

through it — 
But she saw him not. The window-pane, 
Far off, grew large and small again ; 
The staggering light did wax and wane, 
Till there came a snap of the heavy brain ; 
And a slow-subsiding pulse of pain ; 
And the whole world darkened into rest. 
As the grim Earl pressed to his grausome 

breast 
His white wife. She hung heavy there 
On his shoulder without breath, 
Darkly filled with sleepy death 
From her heart up to her eyes ; 
Dead asleep : and ere he knew it 
(How Death took her by surprise 
Helpless in her great despair) 
Smoothing back her yellow hair. 
He kissed her icy brows ; unwoxmd 
His rougharms, and shefell totheground. 

* ' The woman was fairer than she was wise : 
But the serpent v)as wiser than she was 

fair : 
For the serpent teas lord in Paradise 
Or ever the woman came there. 
But luhen Eden-gates were tarred amain. 
And the fiery sword, on guard in the East, 
The lion arose from a long repose. 
And quoth he, as lie shook out his royal 

mane. 



' Now I am the strongest ieast.^ 

Had the woman been wiser when she was 

queen 
The lion had never been king, I toeen. 
But ever since storms began to lower 
Beauty on earth hath been second to Power." 
And this is the song that the Minstrel 

sung. 
With the silver hair and the golden 

tongue, 
Who sung by night in the grim Earl's 

hall. 
And they held him in reverence one and 

all. 

And so she died, — the pale-faced girl. 
And, for nine days after that, the Earl 
Fumed and fret, and raved and swore. 
Pacing up and down the chamber-floor. 
And tearing his black beard as he went, 
In the fit of his sullen discontent. 
And the Seneschal said it was fearful to 

hear him ; 
And not even the weather-worn Warden 

went near him ; 
And the shock-headed Pages huddled 

an ear. 
And bit their white lips till they bled, for 

fear. 

But at last he bade them lift her lightly, 

And bury her by the gray sea-shore. 

Where the winds that blew from her own 
land nightly 

Might wail round her grave through the 
wild rocks hoar. 

So they lifted her lightly at dead of night, 

And bore her down by the long torch- 
light,— 

Lank-haired faces, sallow and keen, 

That burned out of the glassj'^ pools be- 
tween 

The splashing sands which, as thej"- 
plunged through, 

The coffin-lead weighed them down into ; 

And their feet, as they plucked them up, 
left pits 

Which the water oozed into and out of 
by fits — 

— And so to the deep-mouthed bay's 
black brim. 

Where the pale priests, all white- stoled 
and dim, 

Lifted the cross and chanted the hymn. 

That her soul might have peace when 
her bones were dust. 

And her name be written among the Just. 



THE EARL'S RETURN. 



351 



The "Warden walked after the Seneschal 

grim ; 
And the shock-headed Pages walked 

after him : 
And with mattock and spade a grave 

was made, 
Where they carved the cross, and they 

wrote her name, 
And, returning each by the way that he 

came, 
Th(iy left her under the hare black thorn. 

The salt sea-wind sang shrill in the head 
of it ; 

And the bitter night grew chill with the 
dread of it ; 

"When the great round moon rose up for- 
lorn 

From the reefs, and whitened towards 
the morn. 

For the forked tree, as the bleak blast 
took it. 

Howled through it, and beat it, and bit 
it, and shook it, 

Like a living thing bewitched and be- 
deviled. 

Visibly shrunk, and shuddered and 
shrivelled. 

And again the swallow, that false new- 
comer, 

Fluttered over the sea in the front of the 
summer ; 

A careless singer, as he should be 

That only skimmeth the mighty sea ; 

Dipped his wings as he came and went. 

And chirruped and twittered for heart's 
content. 

And built on the new-made grave. But 
when 

The Summer was over he flew back again. 

And the Earl, as years went by, and his 

life 
Grew listless, took him another wife : 
And the Seneschal grim and the Warden 

gray 
Walked about in their wonted way : 
And the lean-jawed shock -haired Pages 

too 
Sung and swilled as they used to do. 
And the grooms and the squires gamed 

and swore 
And quarrelled again as they quarrelled 

before ; 
And the flowers decayed in their dismal 

beds. 



And dropped off from their lean shanks 

one by one. 
Till nothing was left but the stalks and 

the heads, 
Clumped into heaps, or ripped into 

shreds. 
To steam into salt in the sickly sun. 

And the cattle lowed late up the glim- 
mering plain, 
Or dipped knee-deep, and splashed them- 
selves 
In the pools spat out by the spiteful main. 
Wallowing in sandy dikes and delves : 
And the blear-eyed filmy sea did boom 
With his old mysterious hungering sound : 
And the wet wind wailed in the chinks 

of the tomb, 
Till the weeds in the surf were drenched 

and drowned. 
But once a stranger came over the wave. 
And paused by the pale-faced Lady's 
grave. 

It was when, just about to set, 

A sadness held the sinking sun. 

The moon delayed to shine as yet : 

The Ave-Mary chime was done : 

And from the bell - tower leaned the 

ringers ; 
And in the chancel paused the singers. 
With lingering looks, and clasped fingers : 
And the day reluctan tly turned to his rest, 
Like some untold life, that leaves exprest 
But the half of its hungering love ere it 

close : 
So he went sadly toward his repose 
Deep in the heart of the slumbrous waves 
Kindled far off' in the desolate West. 
And the breeze sprang up in the cool sea- 
eaves. 
The castle stood with its courts in shade. 
And all its toothed towers iinprest 
On the sorrowful light that sunset 

made, — 
Such a light as sleeps shut up in the 

breast 
Of some pining crimson -hearted rose. 
Which, as you gaze at it, grows and 

grows 
And all the warm leaves overflows ; 
Leaving its sweet source still to be guest. 
The crumpled shadow of the thorn 
Crawled over the sand-heaps raggedly. 
And over the gray stone cross forlorn. 
And on to that one man musing there 
Moveless, while o' er him the night crept on, 



352 



THE EARL'S RETURN. 



And the hot yellow stars, slowly, one 

after one, 
Mounted into the dark blue air 
And brightened, and brightened. Then 

suddenly. 
And sadly and silently, 
Down the dim breezy brink of the sea 

sank the sun. 

Ere the moon was abroad, the owl 
Made himself heard in the echoing tower 
Three times, four times. The bat with 

his cowl 
Came and went round the lonely Bower 
Where dwelt of yore the Earl's lost Lady. 
There night after night, for years, in vain 
The lingering moon had looked through 

the pane, 
And missed the face she used to find 

there, ' 

White and wan like some mountain flower 
In its rocky nook, as it paled and pined 

there. 
Only known to the moon and the wind 

there. 
Lights flitted faint in the halls down 

lower 
From lattice to lattice, and then glowed 

steady. 

The dipping gull : and the long gray 

pool : 
And the reed that shows which way the 

breeze blows cool. 
From the wide warm sea to the low black 

land : 
And the wave makes no sound on the 

soft yellow sand : 
But the inland shallows sharp and small 
Are swarmed about with the sultry 

midge. 
And the land is still, and the ocean still : 
And the weeds in the rifted rocks at will 
Move on the tide, and float or glide. 
And into the silent western side 
Of the heaven the moon begins to fall. 
But is it the fall of a plover's call 
That is answered warily, low yet shrill, 
From the sand-heapt mound and the 

rocky ridge ? 
And now o'er the dark plain so wild and 

wide 
Falls the note of a horn from the old 

drawbridge. 

Who is it that waits at the castle-gates ? 
Call in the minstrel, and fill the bowl. 



Bid him loose the great music and let 

the song roll. 
Fill the bowl. 
And first, as was due, to the Earl he 

bowed : 
Next to all the Sea-chieftains, blithe 

friends of the Earl's : 
Then advanced through the praise of the 

murmuring crowd. 
And sat down, as they bade him, and 

all his black curls 
Bowed over his harji, as in doubt which 

to choose 
From the melodies coiled at his heart. 

For a man 
O'er some Beauty asleep for one moment 

might muse, 
Half in love, ere he woke her. So ere 

he began, 
He paused over his song. And they 

brought him, the Squires, 
A heavy gold cup with the red wine ripe 

in it. 
Then wave over wave of the sweet silver 

wires 
'Gan ripple, and the minstrel took heart 

to begin it. 

A harper that hai-ps thorough mountain 

and glen, 
Wandering, wandering the wide world 

ovei-. 
Sweetest of singers, yet saddest of men, 
His soul's lost Lady in vain to discover. 
Most fair and most frail of the daughters 

of men, 
blest and curst, the man that should 

love her ! 
Who has not loved ? and who has not 

lost? 
Wherever he wander, the wide world over, 
Singing by citj', and castle, and plain, 
Abiding never, forever a rover. 
Each man that shall hear him will swear 

almost 
In the minstrel's song that his heart can 

discover 
The self-same lady by whom it was crost, 
For love is love the wide world over. 

What shall he liken his love unto ? 
Have you seen some cloud the sun sets 

through. 
When the lingering night is close at 

hand? 
Have you seen some rose lie on the 

snow ? 



THE EARL'S RETURN. 



353 



Or a summer bird in a winter land ? 
Or a lily dying for dearth of dew ? 
Or a pearl sea-cast on a barren strand ? 
Some garden never sunshine warms 
Nor any tend ? some lonely tree 
That stretches bleak its barren arms 
Turned inland from the blighting sea ? 
Her cheek was pale : her face was fair : 
Her heart, he sung, was weak and warm ; 
All goklen was the sleepy hair 
That floated round about her form, 
And hid the sweetness breathing there. 
Her eyes were wild, like stars that shine 
Far off' in summer nights divine : 
But her smile — it was like the golden 

wine 
Poured into the spirit, as into a cup, 
With passioi^ brimming it up and up, 
And marvellous fancies fair and fine. 
He took her hair to make sweet strings : 
He hid her smile deep in his song. 
This makes so rich the tune he sings 
That o'er the world 't will linger long. 

There is.a land far, far away from yours. 
And there the stars are thrice as bright 

as these. 
And there the nightingale strange music 

pours 
All day out of the hearts of myrtle-trees. 
There the voice of the cuckoo sounds 

never forloi'n 
As you hear it far off through the deep 

purple valleys. 
And the fire-fly dances by night in the 

com. 
And the little round owls in the long 

cypress alleys 
Whoop for joy when the moon is born. 
There ripen the olive and the tulip tree, 
And in the sun broadens the green prickly 

pear ; 
And th^ bright galingales in the grass 

you may see ; 
And the vine, with her royal blue globes, 

dwelleth there, 
Climbing and hanging deliciously 
By every doorway and lone latticed cham- 
ber, 
Where the damsel-fly flits, and the heavy 

brown bee 
Hums alone, and the quick lizards rustle 

and clamber. 
And all things, there, live and rejoice 

together, 
From the frail peach-blossom that first 

appears 

23 



When birds are about in the blue sum- 
mer weather, 
To the oak that has lived through his 

eight hundred years. 
And the castles are built on the hills, 

not the plains. 
(And the wild wind-flowers burn about 

in the courts there) 
They are white and undrenched by the 

gray winter rains. 
And the swallows, and all things, are 

blithe at their sports there. 
for one moment, at sunset, to stand 
Far, far away, in that dear distant land 
Whence thej' bore her, — the loveliest 

lady that ever 
Crost the bleak ocean. 0, nevermore, 

never, 
Shall she stand vi^ith her feet in the 

warm dry grasses 
Where the faint balm-heaving breeze 

heavily passes 
And the white lotus-flower leans lone on 

the river. 

Rare were the gems which she had for 

her dower. 
But all the wild-flowers she left behind 

her. 

— A broken heart and a rose-roofed 

bower. 
O oft, and in many a desolate hour, 
The cold strange faces she sees shall re-, 

mind her 
Of hearts that were warmer, and smiles 

that were kinder, 
Lost, like the roses they plucked from 

her bower ! 
Lonely and far from her own land they 

laid her ! 

— A swallow flew over the sea to find 

her. 
Ah cold, cold and narrow, the bed that 

they made her ! 
The swallow went forth with the summer 

to find her. 
The summer and the swallow came back 

o'er the sea, 
And strange were the tidings the bird 

brought to me. 

And the minstrel sung, and they praised 

and listened, — 
Gazed and praised while the minstrel 

sung. 
Flusht was each cheek, and each fixt 

eye glistened. 



354 



THE EAEL'S EETURN. 



And huslit was each voice to the min- 
strel's tongue. 
But the Earl grew paler more and more 
As the song of the Singer grew louder 

and clearer, 
And so dumb was the hall, you might 

hear the roar 
Of the sea in its pauses grow nearer and 

drearer. 
And . . . hush ! hush ! hush ! 
O was it the wind ? or was it the rush 
Of the restless waters that tumble and 

splash 
On the wild sea-rocks ? or was it the 

crash 
Of stones on the old wet bridge iip there ? 
Or the sound of the tempest come over 

the main ? 
— Nay, but just now the night was fair. 
"Was it the march of the midnight rain 
Clattering down in the courts ? or the 

crash 
Of armor yonder ? . . . Listen again ! 

Can it be lightning? — can it be thunder ? 

For a light is all round the lurid hall 

That reddens and reddens the windows 
all, 

And far away you may hear the fall 

As of rafter and bowlder splitting asun- 
der. 

It is not the thunder, and it is not the 
lightning 

To which the castle is sounding and 
brightening. 

But something worse than lightning or 
thunder ; 

For what is this that is coming yonder ? 

"Which way ? Here ! Where ? 

Call the men ! ... Is it there ? 

Call them out ! Ring the bell ! 

Ring the Fiend back to Hell ! 

Ring, ring the alarum for mercy ! . . . 

Too late ! 
It has crawled up the walls — it has 

burst in the gate — 
It looks through the windows — it creeps 

near the hall — 
Near, more near — red and clear — 
It is here ! 
Now the saints save us all ! 

And little, in truth, boots it ringing the 

bell. 
For the fire is loose on its way one may 

teU 



By the hot simmering whispers and 

humming up there 
In the oak-beams and rafters. Now one 

of the Squires 
His elbow hath thrust through the half- 
smouldered door, — 
Such a hole as some rat for his brown 

wife might bore, — 
And straightway in snaky, white, waver- 
ing spires 
The thin smoke twirls through, and 

spreads eddying in gyres 
Here and there toucht with vanishing 

tints from the glare 
That has swathed in its rose-light the 

sharp turret stair. 
Soon the door ruined through : and in 

tumbled a cloud 
Of black vapor. And first 't was all 

blackness, and then 
The quick forked fires leapt out from 

their shroud 
In the blackness : and through it rushed 

in the armed men 
From the court-yard. And then there 

was flying and fighting, 
And praying and cursing, — confusion 

confounded. 
Each man, at wild hazard, through smoke 

ramparts smiting. 
Has struck ... is it iriend ? is it foe ? 

"Who is wounded ? 

But the Earl, — who last saw him ? Who 

cares ? who knows ? 
Some one, no doubt, by the weight of 

his blows. 
And they all, at times, heard his oath, — 

so they swore : — 
Such a cry as some speared wild beast 

might give vent to 
Wlien the lean dogs are on him, and 

forth with that roar 
Of desolate wrath, the life is sent 

too. 
If he die, he will die with the dying 

about him, 
And his red wet sword in his hand, never 

doubt him : 
If he live, perchance he will bear his new 

bride 
Through them all, past the bridge, to 

the wild seaside. 
And there, whether he leave, or keep his 

wife still, 
There 's the free sea round him, new 

lands, and new life still. 



THE EAEL'S RETURN. 



355 



And . . . but ah, the red light there ! 

And high up and higher 
The soft, warm, vivid sparkles crowd 

kindling, and wander 
Far away down the breathless blue cone 

of the night. 
Saints ! can it be that the ships are on 

fire, 
Those fierce hot clots of crimson light. 
Brightening, whitening in the distance 

yonder ? 
Slowly over the slumbrous dark 
Up from those fountains of fire spark on 

spark 
(You might count them almost) floats 

silent : and clear 
In' the steadfast glow the great cross- 
beams, • 
And the sharp and delicate masts show 

black ; 
While wider and higher the red light 

streams. 
And oozes and overflows at the back. 
Then faint through the distance a sound 

you hear. 
And the bare poles totter and disappear. 

Of the Earl, in truth, the Seneschal swore 
(And over the ocean this tale he bore) 
That when, as he fled on that last wild 

night, 
He had gained the other side of the 

moat, 
Dripping, he shook off his wet leathern 

coat. 
And turning round beheld, from base- 
ment 
To cope, the castle swathed in light, 
And, revealed in the glare through My 

Lady's casement. 
He saw, or dreamed he saw, this sight — 

Two forms (and one for the Earl's he 
knew, 

By the long shaggy beard and the broad 
back too) 

Struggling, grappling, like things half 
human. 

The other, he said, he but vaguely dis- 
tinguished, 

When a sound like the shriek of an ag- 
onized woman 

Made him .shudder, and lo, all the vision 
was gone ! 

Ceiling and floor had fallen through, 

In a glut of vomited flame extinguished ; 

And the still fire rose and broadened on. 



How fearful a thing is fire ! 

You might make up your mind to die by 
water 

A slow cool death, — nay, at times, when 
weary 

Of pains that pass not, and pleasures that 
pall, 

When the temples throb, and the heart 
is dreary 

And life is dried up, you could even de- 
sire 

Through the flat green weeds to fall and 
fall 

Half asleep down the green light under 
them all. 

As in a dream, while all things seem 

Wavering, wavering, to feel the stream 

Wind, and gurgle, and sound and gleam. 

And who would very much fear to expire 

By steel, in the front of victorious 
slaughter. 

The blithe battle about Mm, and com- 
rades in call ? 

But to die by fire — 

that night in the hall ! 

And the castle burned from base to top. 
You had thought that the fire would 

never stop. 
For it roared like the great north-wind 

in the pines, 
And shone as the boreal meteor .shines 
Watched by wild hunters in shuddering 

band.s. 
When wolves are about in the icy lands. 
From the sea you might mark for a space 

of three days. 
Or fainter or fiercer, the dull red blaze. 
And when this ceased, the smoke above it 
Hung so heavy not even the wind seemed 

to move it ; 
So it glared and groaned, and night after 

night 
Smouldered, — a terrible beacon-light. 

Now the Earl' s old minstrel, — he that 

had sung 
His youth out in those halls, — the man 

beloved. 
With the silver hair and the golden 

tongue. 
They bore him out from the fire ; but he 

roved 
Back to the stifled courts ; and there 
They watched him hovering, day after 

day. 
To and fro, with his long white hair 



356 



A SOUL'S LOSS. 



And his gold harp, chanthig a lonely 

lay; 
Chanting and changing it o'er and o'er, 
Like the mournful mad melodious breath 
Of some wild swan singing himself to 

death, 
As he floats down a strange land leagues 

away. 
One day the song ceased. They heard 

it no more. 

Did you eyer an Alpine eagle see 
Come down from flying near the sun 
To find his eyrie all undone 
On lonely cliffs where chance hath led 
Some spying thief the brood to plunder ? 
How hangs he desolate overhead, 
And circling now aloft, now under. 
His ruined home screams round and 

round. 
Then drops flat fluttering to the ground. 
So moaning round the roofs they saw 

him. 
With his gleaming harp and his vesture 

white : 
Going, and coming, and ever returning 
To those chambers, emptied of beauty 

and state 
And choked with blackness and ruin 

and burning ; 



Then, as some instinct seemed to draw 

him. 
Like hidden hands, down to his fate. 
He paused, plunged, dropped forever 

from sight ; 
And a cone of smoke and sparkles rolled 

up. 
As out of some troubled crater-cup. 

As for the rest, some died ; some fled 
Over the sea, nor ever returned. 
But until to the living return the dead, 
And they each shall stand and take their 

station 
Again at the last great conflagration, 
Never more will be seen the Earl or the 

stranger. 
No doubt there is much here that 's fit 

to be burned. 
Christ save us all in that day from the 

danger ! 

And this is why these fishermen say. 
Sitting alone in their boats on the bay, 
When the moon is low in the wild windy 

nights, 
They hear strange sounds, and see strange 

sights. 
Spectres gathering all forlorn 
Under the boughs of this bare blackthorn. 



A SOUL'S LOSS. 



"If Beauty have a soul this is not she." — Troilus and Cressida. 



"TwiXT the Future and the Past 
There 's a moment. It is o'er. 

Kiss sad hands ! we part at last. 
I am on the other shore. 

Fly, stern Hour ! and hasten fast. 
Nobler things are gone before. 

From the dark of dying years 
Grows a face with violet eyes, 

Tremulous through tender tears, — 
Warm lips heavy with rich sighs, - 

Ah, they fade ! it disappears. 

And with it my whole heart dies ! 



Dies. 



and this choked world is sick- 



ening ; 
Truth has nowhere room for breath. 



Crusts of falsehood, slowly thickening 
From the rottenness beneath 

These rank social forms, are quickening 
To a loathsome life-in-death. 

those devil's market-places ! 
Knowing, nightly, she was there, 

Can I marvel that the traces 
On her spirit are not fair ? 

1 forgot that air debases 

When Lknew she breathed such air. 

This a fair immortal spirit 

For which God prepared his spheres ? 
What ! shall this the stars inherit ? 

And thfe worth of honest tears ? 
A fool's fancy all its merit ! 

A fool's judgment all its fears ! 



A SOUL'S LOSS. 



357 



No, she loves no other ! ~ No, 
That is lost which she gave me. 

Is this comfort, — that I know 
All her spirit's poverty ? 

When that dry soul is drained low, 
His who wills the dregs may be ! 



Peace ! I trust a heart forlorn 
Weakly upon boisterous speech 

Pity were more fit than scorn. 
Fingered moth, and bloomless 

Gathered rose without a thorn. 
Set to fleer in aU men's reach ! 



I am clothed with her disgrace. 

her shame is made my own ! 

I reel from my high place ! 
All belief i?overthi"own. 

What ! This whirligig of lace. 

This the .Queen that I have known ? 

Starry Queen that did confer 
Beauty on the barren earth ! 

Woodlands, wandered oft with her 
In her sadness and her mirth, 

Feeling her ripe influence stir 
Brought the violets to birth. 

The great golden clouds of even, 
They, too, knew her, and the host 

Of the eternal stars in heaven ; 
And I deemed I knew her most. 

I, to whom the Word was given 
How archangels have been lost ! 

Given in vain ! . . . But all is over ! 

Every spell that bound me broken ! 
In her eyes I can discover 

Of that perisht soul no token. 

1 can neither hate nor love her. 
All my loss must be unspoken. 

Mourn I may, that from her features 

All the angel light is gone. 
But I chide not. Human creatures 

Are not angels. She was none. 
Women have so many natures ! 

1 think she loved me well with one. 

All is not with love departed. 

Life remains, though toucht with scorn. 
Lonely, but not broken-hearted. 

Nature changes not. The mom 
Breathes not sadder. Buds have started 

To white clusters on the thorn. 



And to-morrow I shall see 

How the leaves their green silk sheath. 
Have burst upon the chestnut-tree. 

And the white rose-bush beneath 
My lattice which, once tending, she 

Made thrice sweeter with her breath. 

Its black buds through moss and glue 
Will swell greener. And at eve 

Winking bats will waver through 
The gray warmth from eave to eave, 

While the daisy gathers dew. 
These things grieve not, though I 
grieve. 

What of that ? Deep Nature's gladness 
Does not help this grief to less. 

And the stars will show no sadness, 
And the flowers no heaviness. 

Though each thought should turn to 
madness 
'Neath the strain of its distress ! 

No, if life seem lone to me, 

'T is scarce lonelier than at first. 

Lonely natures there must be. 
Eagles are so. I was nurst 

Far from love in infancy : 

I have sought to slake my thirst 

At high founts ; to fly alone. 

Haunt the heaven, and soar, and sing. 
Earth's warm joys I have not known. 

This one heart held everything. 
Now my eyrie is o'erthrown ! 

As of old, I spread the wing, 

And rise up to meet my fate 

With a yet unbroken will. 
When Heaven shut up Eden-gate, 

Man was given the earth to till. 
There 's a world to cultivate, 

And a solitude to fill. 

Welcome man's old helpmate. Toil ! 

How may this heart's hurt be healed ? 
Crush the olive into oil ; 

Turn the ploughshare ; sow the field. 
All are tillers of the soil. 

Each some harvest hopes to yield. 

Shall I perish with the whole 

Of the coming years in view 
Unattempted ? To the soul 

Every hour brings something new. 
Still suns rise : still ages roll. 

Still some deed is left to do. 



358 



THE ARTIST. 



Some . . . but what ? Small matter now ! 

For one lily for her hair, 
For one rose to wreathe her hrow, 

For one gem to sparkle there, 
I had . . . words, old words, I know ! 

What was I, that she should care 

How I differed from the common 
Crowd that thrills not to her touch ? 

How I deemed her more than human, 
And had died to crown her such ? 

They ? To them she is mere woman. 
0, her loss and mine is much ! 

Fool, she haunts me still ! No wonder ! 

Not a bud on yon black bed, 
Not a swated lily yonder, 

But recalls some fragrance fled ! 
Here, what marvel I should ponder 

On the last word which she said ? 

I must seek some other place 

Where free Nature knows her not : 

Where I shall not meet her face 
In each old familiar spot. 

There is comfort left in space. 
Even this grief may be forgot. 

Great men reach dead hands unto me 

From the graves to comfort me. 
Shakspeare's heart is throbbing through 
me. 



All man has been man may be. 
Plato speaks like one that knew me. 
Life is made Philosophy. 

Ah, no, no ! while yet the leaf 
Turns, the truth upon its pall. 

By the stature of this grief. 

Even Shakespeare shows so small I 

Plato palters with relief. 

Grief is greater than them all ! 

They were pedants who could speak. 

Grander souls have past unheard : 
Such as found all language weak ; 

Choosing rather to record 
Secrets before Heaven : nor break 

Faith with angels by a word. 

And Heaven heeds this wretchedness 

Which I suffer. Let it be. 
Would that I could love thee less ! 

I, too, am dragged down by thee. 
Thine — in weakness — thine — ah yes '. 

Yet farewell eternally. 

Child, I have no lips to chide thee. 

Take the blessing of a heart 
(Never more to beat beside thee !) 

Which in blessing breaks. Depart. 
Farewell. I that deified thee 

Dare not question what thou art. 



THE AETIST. 



Artist, range not over- wide : 
Lest what thou seek be haply hid 

In bramble-blossoms at thy side, 
Or shut within the daisy-lid. 

God's glory lies not out of reach. 

The moss we crush beneath our feet; 
The pebbles on the wet sea-beach, 

Have solemn meanings strange and 
sweet. 

The peasant at his cottage door 

May teach thee more than Plato knew : 

See that thou scorn him not : adore 
God in him, and thy nature too. 



Know well thy friends. The woodbine's 
breath, 

The woolly tendril on the vine. 
Are more to thee than Cato's death. 

Or Cicero's words to Catiline. 

The wild rose is thy next in blood : 
Share Nature with her, and thy heart. 

The kingcups are thy sisterhood : 
Consult them -duly on thine art. 

Nor cross the sea for gems. Nor seek : 
Be sought. Fear not to dwell alone. 

Possess thyself. Be proudly meek. 
See thou be worthy to be known. 



THE ARTIST. 



359 



The Genius on thy daily ways 

Shall meet, and take thee by the hand : 

But serve him not as who obeys : 
He is thy slave if thou command : 

And blossoms on the blackberry-stalks 
He shall enchant as thou dost pass, 

Till they drop gold upon thy walks, 
And diamonds in the dewy grass. 

Such largess of the liberal bowers 
From left to right is grandly flung, 

What time their subject blooms and 
flowers 
King- Poets walk in state among. 

Be quiet. Take things as they come ; 

Each hour ipill draw out some surprise. 
With blessing let the days go home : 

Thou shalt have thanks from evening 
skies. 

Lean not on one mind constantly : 
Lest, where one stood before, two fall. 

Something God hath to say to thee 
Worth hearing from the lips of all. 

All things are thine estate : yet must 
Thou first display the title-deeds, 

And sue the world. Be strong : and trust 
High instincts more than all the creeds. 

The world of Thought is packed so tight, 
If thou stand up another tumbles : 

Heed it not, though thou have to fight 
With giants ; whoso follows stumbles. 

Assert thyself : and by and by 

The world will come and lean on thee. 

But seek not praise of men : thereby 
Shall false shows cheat thee. Boldly 
be. 

Each man was worthy at the first : 
God spake to us ere we were born : 

But we forget. The land is curst : 
We plant the brier, reap the thorn. 

Remember, eveiy man He made 
Is different : has some deed to do. 

Some work to work. Be undismayed, 
Though thine be humble : do it too. 

Not all the wisdom of the schools 

Is wise for thee. Hast thou to speak ? 

No man hath spoken for thee. Ri;les 
Are well : but never fear to break 



The scaffolding of other souls : 

It was not meant for thee to mount ; 

Though it may serve thee. Separate 
wholes 
Make up the sum of God's account. 

Earth's number-scale is near us set ; 

The total God alone can see ; 
But each some fraction : shall I fret 

If you see Four where I saw Three ? 

A unit's loss the sum would mar ; 

Therefore if I have One or Two, 
I am as rich as others are, 

And help the whole as well as you. 

This wild white rosebud in my hand 
Hath meanings meant for me alone, 

Which no one else can understand : 
To you it breathes with altered tone r 

How shall I class its properties 
For you ? or its wise whisperings 

Interpret ? Other ears and eyes 
It teaches many other things. 

We number daisies, fringe and star : 
We count the cinqfoils and the 
poppies : 

We know not what they mean. We are 
Degenerate copyists of copies. 

We go to Nature, not as lords, 

But servants : and she treats us thus : 

Speaks to us with indifferent words, 
And from a distance looks at us. 

Let us go boldly, as we ought, 
And say to her, ' ' We are a part 

Of that supreme original Thought 
Which did conceive thee what thou art : 

" We will not have this lofty look : 
Thou shalt fall down, and recognize 

Thy kings : we will write in thy book, 
Command thee with our eyes." 

She hath usurpt us. She should be 
Our model ; but we have become 

Her miniature-painters. So when we 
Entreat her softly she is dumb. 

Nor serve the subject overmuch : 

Nor rhythm and rhyme, nor color and 
form. 

Know Truth hath all great graces, such 
As shall with these thy work inform. 



860 



THE ARTIST. 



We ransack History's tattered page : 
We prate of epoch and costume : 

Call this, and that, the Classic Age : 
Choose tunic now, now helm and plume: 

But while we halt in weak debate 

'Twixt that andthis appropriate theme, 

The offended wild-iiowers stare and wait. 
The bird hoots at us from the stream. 

Next, as to laws. What 's beautiful 
We recognize in form and face : 

And judge it thus, and thus, by rule, 
As perfect law brings perfect grace : 

If through the effect we drag the cause, 

Dissect, divide, anatomize. 
Results are lost in loathsome laws, 

And all the ancient beauty dies : 

Till we, instead of bloom and light. 
See only sinews, nerves, and veins : 

Nor will the effect and cause unite, 
For one is lost if one remains : 

But from some higher point behold 
This dense, perplexing complication ; 

And laws involved in laws unfold. 
And orb into thy contemplation. 

God, when he made the seed, conceived 
The flower ; and all the work of sun 

And rain, before the stem was leaved, 
In that prenatal thought was done ; 

The girl who twines in her soft hair 
The orange-flower, with love's devotion. 

By the mere act of being fair 

Sets countless laws of life in motion ; 

So thou, by one thoughtthoroughlygreat, 
Shalt, without heed thereto, fulfil 

All laws of art. Create ! create ! 
Dissection leaves the dead dead still. 

All Sciences are branches, each, 

Of that first science, — Wisdom. Seize 
The true point whence, if thou shouldst 
reach 
Thine arm out, thou may'st grasp all 
these. 

And close all knowledge in thy palm. 

As History proves Philosophy : 
Philosophy, with warnings calm. 

Prophet-like, guiding History. 

Burn catalogues . Write thine own books. 
Whatneedtoporeo'erGreeceandRome? 



When whoso through his own life looks 
Shall find that he is fully come, 

Through Greece and Rome, and Middle- 
Age : 

Hath been by turns, ere yet full-grown, 
Soldier, and Senator, and Sage, 

And worn the tunic and the gown. 

Cut the world thoroughly to the heart. 

The sweet and bitter kernel crack. 
Have no half-dealings with thine art. 

All heaven is waiting : turn not back. 

If all the world for thee and me 
One solitary shape possessed. 

What shall I say ? a single tree — 
Whereby to type and hint the rest. 

And I could imitate the bark 

And foliage, both in form and hue. 

Or silvery-rgray, or brown and dark, 
Or rough with moss, or wet with dew. 

But thou, with one form in thine eye, 
Couldst penetrate all forms : possess 

The soul of form : and multiply 
A million like it, more or i|ess, — 

Which were the Artist of us twain ? 

Tl'e moral 's clear to understand. 
Where'er we walk, by hill or plain. 

Is there no mystery on the land ? 

The osiered, oozy water, ruffled 

By fluttering swifts that dip and wink : 

Deep cattle in the cowslips muffled, 
Or lazy-eyed upon the brink : 

Or, when — a scroll of stars — the night 
(Bj^ God withdrawn) is rolled away. 

The silent sun, on some cold height. 
Breaking the great seal of the day : 

Are these not words more rich than ours ? 

seize their import if you can ! 
Our souls are parched like witheiing 
flowers, 

Our knowledge ends where it began. 

While yet about us fall God's dews, 
And whisper secrets o'er the earth 

Worth all the weary years we lose 
In learning legends of our birth. 

Arise, Artist ! and restore 

Their music to the moaning winds. 

Love's broken pearls to life's bare shore, 
And freshness to our fainting minds. 



THE WIFE'S TRAGEDY. 



361 



THE WIFE'S TEAGEDY. 



THE EVENING BEFOKE THE 
FLIGHT. 

Take the diamonds' from my hair ! 

Take the flowers from the urn ! 
Fling the lattice wide ! more air ! 

Air — more air, or else I burn ! 

Put the bracelets by. And thrust 
Out of sight these hated pearls. 

I could trample them to dust, 

Though thay were his gift, the Earl's ! 

Flusht I am ? The dance it was. 

Only that. Now leave me. Sweet. 
Take the flowers, Love, because 

They will wither in this heat. 

Good night, dearest ! Leave the door 

Half-way open as you go. 
— O, thank God ? . . . Alone once more. 

Am I dreaming ? . . . Dreaming ? . . . 

mj * 

Still that music underneath 
Works to madness in my brain. 

Even the roses seem to breathe 
Poisoned perfumes, full of pain. , 

Let me think . . . my head is aching. 

I have little :;trength to think. 
And I know my heart is breaking. 

Yet, love, I will not shrink ! 

In his look was such sweet sadness. 

And he fixed that look on me. 
I was helpless . . . call it madness, 

Call it guilt • . . but it must be. 

I can bear it, if, in losing 

All things else, I lose him not. 

All the grief is my own choosing. 
Can I murmur at my lot ? 

Ah, the night is bright and still 

Over all the fields I know. 
And the chestnuts on the hill : 

And the quiet lake below. 

By that lake I yet remember 

How, last year, we stood together 



One wild eve in warm September 
Bright with thunder : not a feather 

Stirred the slumbrous swans that floated 
Past the reed-beds, husht and white ' 

Towers of sultry cloud hung moated 
In the lake's unshaken light : 

Far behind us all the extensive 
Woodland blackened against heaven : 

And we spoke not : — pausing pensive ; 
Till the thunder-cloud was riven, 

And the black wood whitened under, 
And the storm began to roll. 

And the love laid up like thunder 
Burst at once upon my soul. 

There ! . . . the moon is just in crescent 

In the silent happy sky. 
And to-night the meanest peasant 

In her light 's more blest than I. 

Other moons I soon shall see 
Over Asian headlands green ; 

Ocean-spaces sparkling free 

Isles of breathless balm between. 

And the rosy-rising star 

At the setting of the day 
From the distant sandy bar 

Shining over Africa : 

Steering through the glowing weather 
Past the tracks of crimson light, 

Down the sunset lost together 
Far athwart the summer night. 

" Canst thou make such life thy choice, 
My heart's own, my chosen one ?"- 

So he whispered and his voice 
Had such magic in its tone ! 

But one hour ago we parted. 

And we meet again to-morrow. 
Parted — silent, and sad-hearted : 

And we meet — in guilt and sorrow. 

But we shall meet . . . meet, God, 
To part never . . . the last time ! 

Yes ! the Ordeal shall be trod. 

Burning ploughshares — love and 
crime. 



362 



THE WIFE'S TRAGEDY. 



with him, with him to wander 
Through the wide world — only his ! 

Heart and hope and heaven to squander 
On the wild wealth of his kiss ! 

Then ? . . . like these poor flowers that 
wither 

In my bosom, to be thrown 
Lightly from him any whither 

When the sweetness all is flown ? 

0, I know it all, my fate ! 

But the gulf is crost forever. 
And regret is born too late. 

The shut Past reopens never. 

Fear ? . . . I cannot fear ! for fear 
Dies with hope in every breast. 

0, I see the frozen sneer, 

Careless smile, and callous jest ! 

But my shame shall yet be 'worn 
Like the purple of a Queen. 

1 can answer scorn with scorn. 
Fool ! I know not what I mean. 

Yet beneath his smile Qds smile !) 
Smiles less kind I shall not see. 

Let the whole wide world revile. 
He is all the world to me. 

So to-night all hopes, all fears. 
All the bright and brief array 

Of my lost youth's happier years, 
With these gems I put away. 

Gone ! . . . so . . . one by one ... all gone ! 

Not one jewel I retain 
Of my life's wealth. All alone 

I tread boldly o'er my pain 

On to him . . . Ah, me ! my child — 
My own fair-haired, darling boy ! 

In his sleep just now he smiled. 
All his dreams are dreams of joy. 

How those soft long lashes shade 
That young cheek so husht and warm, 

Like a half-blown rosebud laid 
On the little dimpled arm ! 

He will wake without a mother. 

He will hate me when he hears 
From the cold lips of another 

All my faults in after years. 

None will tell the deep devotion 
Wherewith I have brooded o'er 



His young life, since its first motion 
Made me hope and pray once more. 

On my breast he smiled and slept, 
Smiled between my wrongs and me. 

Till the weak warm tears I wept 
Set my dry, coiled nature free. 

Nay, . . . my feverish kiss would wake 
him. 

How can I dare bless his sleep ? 
They will change him soon, and make him 

Like themselves that never weep ; 

Fitted to the world's bad part : 

Yet, will all their wealth afford him 

Aught more rich than this lost heart 
Whose last anguish yearns toward him ? 

Ah, there 's none will love him then 
As I love that leave him now ! 

He will mix with selfish men. 
Yes, he has his father's brow ! 

Lie thou there, thou poor rose-blossom, 
In that little hand more light 

Than upon this restless bosom. 
Whose last gift is given to-night. 

God forgive me ! — My God, cherish 
His lone motherless infancy ! 

Would to-night that I might perish I 
But heaven will not let me die. 

love ! love ! but this is bitter ! 

that we had never met ! 
but hate than love were fitter ! 

And he too may hate nie yet. 

Yet to him have I not given 

All life's sweetness ? . . . fame ? and 
name ? 
Hope 1 and happiness ? and heaven ? 

Can he hate me for my shame 1 

"Child," he said, "thy life was glad 
In the dawning of its years ; 

And love's morn should be less sad. 
For his eve may close in tears. 

" Sweet in novel lands," he said, 
" Day by day to share delight ; 

On by soft surprises led. 
And together rest at night. 
», 

" We will see the shores of Greece, 
And the temples of the Nile : 



THE WIFE'S TRAGEDY. 



363 



Sail where summer suns increase 
Toward the south from isle to isle. 

" Track the first star that swims on 
Glowing depths toward night and us, 

While the heats of sunset crimson 
All the purple Bosphorus. 

** Leaning o'er some dark ship-side, 
Watch the wane of mighty moons ; 

Or through starlit Venice glide, 
Singing down the blue lagoons. 

" So from coast to coast we '11 range, 

Growing nearer as we move 
On our charmed way ; each soft change 

Only deepening changeless love." 

'T was the dream which I, too, dreamed 
Once, long since, in days of yore. 

Life's long-faded fancies seemed 
At his words to bloom once more. 

The old hope, the wreokt belief. 
The lost light of vanisht years, 

Ere my heart was worn with grief, 
Or my eyes were dimmed with tears ! 

When, a careless girl, I clung 

With proud trust to my own powers ; 

Ah, long since I, too, was young, 
I, too, dreamed of happier hours ! 

Whether this may yet be so 
(Truth or dream) I cannot tell. 

But where'er his footsteps go 
Turns my heart, I feel too well. 

Ha ! the long night wears away. 

Yon cold drowsy star grows dim. 
The long-feared, long-wisht-for day 

Comes, when I shall fly with him. 

In the laurel wakes the thrush. 

Through these dreaming chambers wide 
Not a sound is stirring. Hush ; 

— 0, it was my child that cried ! 



II. 
THE PORTRAIT. 

Yes, 't is she ! Those eyes ! that hair 
With the self-same wondrous hue ! 

And that smile — which was so fair, 
Is it strange I deemed it true ? 



Years, years, years I have not drawn 
Back this curtain ! there she stands 

By the terrace on the lawn. 

With the white rose in her hands : 

And about her the armorial 
Scutcheons of a haughty race. 

Graven each wit-^ its memorial 
Of the old Lords of the Place. 

You, who do profess to see 
In the face the written mind, 

Look in that face, and tell me 
In what part of it you find 

All the falsehood, and the wrong. 
And the sin, which must have been 

Hid in baleful beauty long, 
Like the worm that lurks unseen 

In the shut heart of the flower. 

'T is the Sex, no doubt ! And still 
Some may lack the means, the power, 

There 's not one that lacks the will. 

Their own way they seek the Devil, 

Ever prone to the deceiver ! 
If too deep I feel this evil 

And this shame, may God forgive her ! 

For I loved her, — loved, ay, loved her 
As a man just once may love. 

I so trusted, so approved her. 
Set her, blindly, so above 

This poor world which was about her ! 

And (so loving her) because, 
With a faith too high to doubt her, 

I, forsooth, but seldom was 

At her feet with clamorous praises 

And protested tenderness 
(These things some men can do), phrases 

On her face, perhaps her dress, 

Or the flower she chose to braid 
In her hair, — because, you see. 

Thinking love 's best proved unsaid, 
And by words the dignity 

Of true feeling 's often lost, 

I was vowed to life's broad duty ; 

Man's great business uppermost 
In my mind, not woman's beauty ; 

Toiling still to win for her 
Honor, fortune, state in life. 



364 



THE WIFE'S TRAGEDY. 



(" Too much with the Minister, 
And too little with the wife ! ") 

Just for this, she flung aside 

All my toil, my heart, my name ; 

Trampled on my ancient pride, 
Turned my honor into shame. 

0, if this old coronet 

Weighed too hard on her young brow, 
Need she thus dishonor it. 

Fling it in the dust so low ? 

But 'tis just these women's way, — 
All the same the wide world over ! 

Fooled by what 's most worthless, they 
Cheat in turn the honest lover. 

And I was not, I thank heaven, 

Made, as some, to read them through ; 

Were life three times longer even, 
There are better things to do. 

No ! to let a woman lie 

Like a canker, at the roots 
Of a man's life, — burn it dry, 

Nip the blossom, stunt the fruits. 

This I count both shame and thrall ! 

Who is free to let < ne creature 
Come between himself, and all 

The true process of his nature, 

While across the world the nations 
Call to us that we should share 

In their griefs, their exultations ? — 
All they will be, all they are ! 

And so much yet to be done, — 

Wrong to root out, good to strengthen! 

Such hard battles to be won ! 

Such long glories yet to lengthen ! 

'Mid all these, how small one grief, — 
One wrecked heart, whose hopes are 
o'er ! 

For myself I scorn relief. 
For the people I claim more. 

Strange ! these crowds whose, instincts 
guide them 

Fail to get the thing they would, 
Till we nobles stand beside them, 

Give our names, or shed our blood. 

From of old this hath been so. 
For we too were with the first 



In the fight fought long ago 

When the chain of Charles was burst. 

Who but we set Freedom's border 
Wrenched at Runnymede from John ? 

Who but we stand, towers of order, 
'Twixt the red cap and the Throne ? 

And they wrong us, England's Peers, 
Us, the vanguard of the land. 

Who should say the march of years 
Makes us shrink at Truth's right 
hand. 

'Mid the armies of Reform, 
To the People's cause allied, 

We — the forces of the storm ! 
We ■ — the planets of the tide ! 

Do I seem too much to fret 

At my own peculiar woe ? 
Would to heaven I could forget 

How I loved her long ago ! 

As a father loves a child, 

So I loved her : — rather thus 

Than as youth loves, when our wild 
New-found passions master us. 

And — for I was proud of old 
('T is my nature) — doubtless she 

In the man so calm, so cold. 
All the heart's warmth could not 



Nay, I blame myself — nor lightly, 
Whose chief duty was to guide 

Her young careless life more rightly 
Through the perils at her side. 

Ah, but love is blind ! and I 

Loved her blindly, blindly ! . . . Well, 
Who that ere loved trustfully 

Such strange danger could foretell ? 

As some consecrated cup 
On its saintly shrine secure, 

All my life seemed lifted up 

On that heart I deemed so pure. 

Well, for me there yet remains 

Labor — that 's much : then, the state : 

And, what pays a thousand pains. 
Sense of right and scorn of fate. 

And, 0, more ! . . . my own brave boy, 
With his frank and eager brow, 



THE WIFE'S TRAGEDY. 



365 



And his hearty innocent joy. 
For as yet he does not know 

All the wrong his mother did. 

Would that this might pass unknown ! 
For his young years God forbid 

I should darken by my own. 

Yet this must come . . . But I mean 
He shall be, as time moves on, 

All his mother might have been, 
Comfort, counsel — both in one. 

Doubtless, first, in that which moved me 
Man's strong natural wrath had part. 

Wronged by one I deemed had loved me, 
For I loved her from my heart ! 

But that 's past ! If I was sore 

To the heart, and blind with shame, 

I see calmly now. Nay, more, — 
For I pity where I blame. 

For, if he betray or grieve her, 
What is hers to turn to still ? 

And at last, when he shall leave her, 
As at last he surely will. 

Where shall she find refuge ? w^hat 
That worst widowhood can soothe ? 

For the Past consoles her not. 
Nor the memories of her youth, 

Neither that which in the dust 

She hath flung, — the name she bore ; 

But with her own shame she must 
Dwell forsaken evermore. 

Nothing left but years of anguish, 
And remorse but not return : 

Of her own self-hate to languish : 
For her long-lost peace to yearn : 

Or, yet worse beyond all measure, 

Starting from wild reveries, 
Drain the poison misnamed Pleasure, 

And laugh drunken on the lees. 

false heart ! woman, woman, 
Woman ! would thy treachery 

Had been less ! For surely no man 
Better loved than I loved thee. 

We must never meet again. 

Even shouldst thou repent the past. 
Both must suffer : both feel pain : 

Ere God pardon both at last. 



Farewell, thou false face ! Life speeds 
me 

On its duties. I must fight : 
I must toil. The People needs me ; 

And I speak for them to-night. 



III. 

THE LAST INTERVIEW. 

Thanks, Dear ! Put the lamp down . . i 
so. 

For my eyes are weak and dim. 
How the shadows come and go ! 

Speak truth, — have they sent for him ? 

Yes, thank Heaven ! And he will come, 
Come and watch my dying hour, — 

Though I left and shamed his home. 
— I am withered like this flower 

Which he gave me long ago. 

'T was upon my bridal eve. 
When I swore to love him so 

As a wife should — smile or grieve 

With him, for him, — and not shrink. 

And now ? . . . the long, long pain ! 
See this sunken cheek ! You think 

He would know my face again ? 

All its wretched beauty gone ! 

Only the deep care survives. 
Ah, could years of grief atone 

For those fatal hours ! ... It drives 

Past the pane, the bitter blast ! 

In this garret one might freeze. 
Hark there ! wheels below ! At last 

He is come then ? No . . . the trees 

And the night-wind — nothing more ! 

Set the chair for him to sit. 
When he comes. And close the door. 

For the gust blows cold through it. 

When I think, I can remember 
I was born in castle halls, — 

How yon dull and dying ember 

Glares against the white washt walls ! 

If he come not (but you said 
That the messenger was sent 

Long since ?) Tell him when I 'm dead 
How my life's last hours were spent 



366 



THE WIFE'S TRAGEDY. 



In repenting that life's sin, 

And . . . the room grows strangely 
dark ! 
See, the rain is oozing in. 

Set the lamp down nearer. Hark, 

rootsteps, footsteps on the stairs ! 

His . . . no, no ! 't was not the wind. 
God, I know, has heard my prayers. 

"We shall meet. I am resigned. 

Prop me np upon the pillows. 

Will he come to my hedside ? 
Once 't was his . . . Among the willows 

How the water seems to glide ! 

Past the woods, the farms, the towers. 
It seems gliding, gliding through. 

"Dearest, see, these young June-flowers, 
ITiave'pluckt them all for you, 

"Here, where passed my boyhood musing 
On the bride which I might wed." 

Ah, it goes now ! I am losing 
AH things. What was that he said ? 



Say, where am I ? 
room ? 



. this strange 



THE EARL. 



Gertrude ! 



GERTRtTDE. 

Ah, his voice ! I knew it. 
But this place ? ... Is this the tomb, 
With the cold dews creeping through 
it? 

THE EARL. 

Gertrude ! Gertrude ! 

GERTRTTDE. 

Will you stand 
Near me ? Sit down. Do not stir. 
Tell me, may I take your hand ? 
Tell me, will you look on her 

Who so wronged you ? I have wept 
O such tears for that sin's sake ! 

And that thought has never slept, — 
But it lies here, like a snake. 

In my bosom, — gnawing, gnawing 
All my life up ! I had meant, 



Could I live yet 
Near me — 



Death is drawing 



THE EARL. 

God, thy punishment ! 
Dare I judge her ? — 

GERTRUDE. 

0, believe me, 
'T was a dream, a hideous dream. 
And I wake now. Do not leave me. 
I am dying. All things seem 

Failing from me — even my breath ! 

But my sentence is from old. 
Sin came first upon me. Death 

Follows sin, soon, soon ! Behold, 

Dying thus ! Ah, why didst leave 
Lonely Love's lost bridal bowers 

Where I found the snake, like Eve, 
Unsuspected 'mid the flowers ? 

Had I been some poor man's bride, 
I had shared with love his lot : 

Labored truly by his side. 
And made glad his lowly cot. 

I had been content to mate 

Love with labor's sunburnt brows. 

But to be a thing of state, — 
Homeless in a husband's house ! 

In the gorgeous game — the strife 
For the dazzling prize — that moved 
you — 
Love seemed crowded out of life — 

THE EARL. 

Ah fool ! and I loved you, loved you ! 

GERTRUDE. 

Yes. I see it all at last — 

All in ruins. I can dare 
To gaze down o'er my lost past 

From these heights of my despair. 

0, when all seemed grown most drear — 
I was weak — I cannot tell — 

But the serpent in my ear 

Whispered, whispered — and I fell. 

Look around, now. Does it cheer you, 
This strange place ? the wasted frame 

Of the dying woman near you. 
Weighed into her grave by shame ? 



THE WIFE'S TRAGEDY. 



367 



Can yon trace in this wan form 

Auglit resembling that young girl's 

"Whom you loved once ? See, this arm — 
Shri;nken, shrunken ! And my curls, 

They have cut them all away. 

And my brows are worn with woe. 
Would you, looking at me, say, 

She was lovely long ago ? 

Husband, answer ! in all these 
Are you not avenged ? If I 

Could rise now, upon my knees, 
At your feet, before I die, 

I would fall down in my sorrow 
And my shame, and say "forgive," 

That which will be dust to-morrow, 
This weak^lay ! 

THE EARL. 

Poor sufferer, live. 
God forgives. Shall I not so ? 

GERTRUDE. 

ITay, a better life, in truth, 
I do hope for. Not below. 
Partner of my perisht youth. 

Husband, wronged one ! Let your bless- 
ing 

Be with me, before, to-night, 
From the life that 's past redressing 

This strayed soul must take its flight ! 

Tears, warm tears ! I feel them creep 
Down my cheek. Tears — not my 
own. 

It is long since I could weep. 

Past all tears my grief hath grown. 

Over this dry withered cheek. 
Drop by drop, I feel them fall. 

But my voice is growing weak : 
And I have not spoken all. 

I had much to say. My son, 

My lost child that never knew me ! 

Is he like me ? One by one, 
All his little ways come to me. 

Is he grown ? I fancy him ! 

How that childish face comes back 
O'er my memory sweet and dim ! 

And his long hair ? Is it black ? 



Or as mine was once ? His mother 

Did he ever ask to see ? 
Has he grown to love another — 

Some strange woman not like me ? 

Would he shudder to behold 
This pale face and faded form 

If he knew, in days of old. 

How he slumbered on my arm ? 

How I nurst him ? loved him ? missed 
him 

All this long heartbroken time ? 
It is years since last I kissed him. 

Does he hate me for my crime ? 

I had meant to send some token — 
If, indeed, I dared to send it. 

This old chain — the links are broken — 
Like my life — I could not mend it. 

Husband, husband ! I am dying, 
Dying ! Let me feel your kiss 

On my brow where I am lying. 
You are great enough for this ! 

And you '11 lay me, when I 'm gone, 
— Not in those old sculptui'ed walls ! 

Let no name be carved — no stone — 
No ancestral funerals ! 

In some little grave of grass 
Anywhere, you '11 let me lie : 

Where the night-winds only pass, 
Or the clouds go floating by ; 

Where my shame may be forgot ; 

And the story of my life 
And my sin remembered not. 

So forget the faithless wife ; 

Or if, haply, when I 'm dead, 
On some worthier happier breast 

Than mine was, you lean your head, 
Should one thought of me molest 

Those calm hours, recall me only 
As you see me, — worn with tears : 

Dying desolate here ; left lonely 
By the overthrow of years. 

May I lay my arm, then, there ? 

Does it not seem strange to you, 
This old hand among your hair ? 

And these wasted fingers too ? 



368 



THE WIFE'S TRAGEDY. 



How the lamp wanes ! All grows dark — 
Dark and strange. Yet now there 
shined 

Something past me . . . Husband, hark ! 
There are voices on the wind. 

Are they come ? and do they ask me 

For the songs we used to sing ? 
Strange that memory thus should task 
me! 
Listen — 

Birds are on the wing : 

And thy Birthday Morn is rising. 

May it ever rise as bright ! 
Wake not yet ! The day 's devising 

Fair new things for thy delight. 

Wake not yet I Last night this flower 
Near thy parch began to pout 

From its warm sheath : in an hour 
All the young leaves will be out. 

Wake not yet ! So dear thou art, love, 

That I grudge these buds the bliss 
Each will bring to thy young heart, love, 
I would claim all for my kiss. 

Wake not yet ! 

— There now, it fails me ! 

Is my lord there ? I am ill. 
And I cannot tell what ails me. 

Husband ! Is he near me still ? 

0, this anguish seems to crush 
All my life up, — body and mind ! 

THE EAKL. 

Gertrude ! Gertrude ! Gertrude ! 



GERTRUDE. 



Hush ! 



There are voices in the wind. 



THE EARL. 

still she wanders ! Ah, the plucking 
At the sheet ! 

GERTRUDE. 

Hist ! do not take it 
From my bosom. See, 't is sucking ! 
If it sleep we must not wake it. 



Such a little rosy mouth ! 

— Not to-night, not to-night ! 
Did he tell me in the South 

That those stars were twice as bright 1 

Off ! away ! unhand me — go ! 

I forgive thee my lost heaven, 
And the wrong which thou didst do. 

Would my sin, too, were forgiven ! 

Gone at last ! . . . Ah, fancy feigns 
These wild visions ! I grow weak. 

Fast, fast dying ! Life's warmth wanes 
From me. Is the fire out ? 



THE EARL. 



Speak, 



Gertrude, speak ! My wife, my wife ! 

Nay she is not dead, — not dead ! 
See, the lips move. There is life. 

She is choking. Lift her head. 



GERTRUDE. 



Death ! . . . My eyes grow dim, and 
dimmer. 

I can scared}' see thy face. 
But the twilight seems to glimmer. 

Lighted from some distant place. 



Husband ! 



THE EARL. 

Gertrude ! 



GERTRUDE. 

Art thou near me t 
On thy breast — once more — thy 
breast ! 
I have sinned — and — nay, yet hear me, 
And repented — and — 



THE EARL. 



The rest 



God hath heard, where now thou art, 
Thou poor soul, — in Heaven. 

The door — 
Close it softly, and depart. 
Leave us ! 

She is mine once more. 



MINOR POEMS. 



THE PARTING OF LAUNCELOT 
AND GUENEVERE. 

A FRAGMENT. 

Now, as the time wore by to Our Lady's 

Day, 
Spring lingef^d in the chambers of the 

South. 
The nightingales were far in fairy lands 
Beyond the sunset : but the wet blue 

woods 
Were half aware of violets in the wake 
Of morning rains. The swallow still 

delayed 
To build and be about in noisy roofs, 
And March was moaning in the windy 

elm. 

But Arthur's royal purpose held to keep 
A joust of arms to solemnize the time 
In stately Camelot. So the King sent 

forth 
His heralds, and let cry through all the 

land 
That he himself would take the lists, 

and tilt 
Against all comers. 

Hither came the chiefs 
Of Christendom. The King of North- 

galies ; 
Anguishe, the King of Ireland ; the Haut 

Prince, 
Sir Galahault ; the King o' the Hundred 

Knights ; 
The Kings of Scotland and of Brittany ; 
And many more renowned knights 

whereof 
The names are glorious. Also all the 

earls. 
And all the dukes, and all the mighty 

men 
And famous heroes of the Table Round, 
From far Northumberland to where the 

wave 
jRides rough on Devon from the outer 

main.. 

24 



So that there was not seen for seven 

years. 
Since when, at Whitsuntide, Sir Galahad 
Departed out of Carlyel from the court, 
So fair a fellowship of goodly knights. 

Then would King Arthur that the Queen 

should ride 
With him from Carlyel to' Camelot 
To see the jousts. But she, because that 

yet 
The sickness was upon her, answered 

nay. 
Then said King Arthur, " This repenteth 

me. 
For never hath been seen for seven years, 
No, not since Galahad, at Whitsuntide, 
Departed from us out of Carlyel, 
So fair a fellowship Of goodly knights." 
But the Queen would not, and the King 

in wrath 
Brake up the court, and rode to Astolat 
On this side Camelot. 

Now men said the Queen 
Tarried behind because of Launcelot, 
For Launcelot stayed to heal him of his 

wound. 
And there had been estrangement 'twixt 

these two 
r the later time, because of bitter words. 
So when the King with all his fellowship 
Was ridden out of Carlyel, the Queen 
Arose, and called to her Sir Launcelot. 

Then to Sir Launcelot spoke Queen 
Guenevere. 

"Not for the memory of that love 
whereof 

No more than memory lives, but. Sir, 
for that 

Which even when love is ended yet en- 
dures 

Making immortal life with deathless 
deeds. 

Honor — true knighthood's golden spurs, 
the crown 



370 



THE PARTING OF LAUNCELOT A]S[I> GUENEVEEE. 



Andpriceless diadem of peerless Queens, — 
I make appeal to you, that hear perchance 
The last appeal which I sliall ever make. 
So weigh my words not lightly ! for I feel 
The fluttering hres of life grow faint and 

cold 
About my heart. And oft, indeed, to 

me 
Lying whole hours awake in the dead 

nights 
The end seems near, as though the dark- 
ness knew 
The angel waiting there to call my soul 
Perchance before the house awakes ; and 

oft 
When faint, and all at once, from far 

away, 
The mournful midnight bells begin to 

sound 
Across the river, all the days that were 
(Brief, evil days !) return upon my heart, 
And, where the sweetness seemed, I see 

the sin. 
For, waking lone, long hours before the 

dawn, 
Beyond the borders of the dark I seem 
To see the twilight of another world. 
That grows and grows and glimmers on 

my gaze. 
And oft, wlien late, before the languor- 
ous moon 
Through yonder windows to the West 

goes down 
Among the pines, deep peace upon me 

falls, 
Deep peace like death, so that I think I 

know 
The blessed Mary and the righteous 

saints 
Stand at the throne, and intercede for 

me. 
Wherefore these things are thus I can- 
not tell. 
But now I pray you of your fealty. 
And by all knightly faith which may be 

left, 
Arise and get you hence, and join the 

King. 
For wherefore hold you thus behind the 

court, 
Seeing nay liege the King is moved in 

wrath ? 
For wete you well what say your foes and 

mine. 
'See how Sir Launcelot and Queen 

Guenevere 
Do hold them ever thus behind the King 



That they may take their pleasure! 

Knowing not 
How that for me all these delights are 

come 
To be as withered violets." 

Half in tears 
She ceased abrupt. Given up to a proud 

grief. 
Vexed to be vext. With love and anger 

moved. 
Love toucht with scorn, and anger 

pierced with love. 
About her, all unheeded, her long hair 
Loosed its warm, yellow, waving loveli- 
ness, 
And o'er her bare and shining shoulder 

cold 
Fell floating free. Upon one full white 

arm. 
To which the amorous purple coverlet 
Clung dimpling close, her drooping state 

was propt. 
There, half in shadow of her soft gold 

cvirls. 
She leaned, and like a rose enricht with 

dew. 
Whose heart is heavy with the clinging 

bee, 
Bowed down toward him all her glowing 

face. 
While in the light of her large angry 

eyes 
Uprose, and rose, a slow imperious sorrow, 
And o'er the shine of still, unc[uivei'ing 

tears 
Swam on to him. 

But he, with brows averse 
And orgolous looks, three times to speech 

addressed. 
Three times in vain. The silence of the 

place 
Fell like a hand upon his heart, and 

Irashed 
His foolish anger with authority. 
He would not see the wretched Queen : 

he saw 
Only the hunter on the arrassed wall 
Prepare to wind amort his bugle horn. 
And the long daylight dying down the 

floors ; 
For half-way through the golden gates 

of eve 
The sun was rolled. The dropping tap- 
estry glowed 
With awful hues. Far oif among his 

reeds 



THE PARTING OF LAUNCELOT AND GUENEVERE. 



371 



The river, smitten with a waning light, 
Shone ; and, behind black lengths of 

pine revealed. 
The red West smouldered, and the day 

declined. 
Then year by year, as wave on wave a 

sea, 
The tided Past came softly o'er his heart, 
And all the days which had been. 

So he stood 
Long in his mind divided : with himself 
At strife : and, like a steed that hotly 

chafes 
His silver bit, which yet some silken 

rein 
Swayed by W skilled accustomed hand 

restrains, 
His heart against the knowledge of its 

love 
Made vain revolt, and fretful rose and 

sunk. 
But at the last, quelling a wayward grief, 
That swelled against all utterance, and 

sought 
To force its salt and sorrowful overflow 
Upon weak language, "Now indeed," 

he cried, 
"I see the face of the old time is 

changed. 
And all things altered ! "Will the sun 

still burn ? 
Still burn the eternal stars ? For love 

was deemed 
Not less secure than these. Needs 

shoiild there be 
Something remarkable to prove the world 
1 am no more that Launcelot, nor thou 
That Guenevere, of whom, long since, 

the fame, 
Fruitful of noble deeds, with such a 

light 
Did fill this nook and cantle of the 

earth. 
That all great lands of Christendom be- 
side 
Showed darkened of their glory. But I 

see 
That there is nothing left for men to 

swear by. 
For then thy will did never urge me 

hence, 
But drew me through, all dangers to thy 

feet. 
And none can say, least thou, I have 

not been 
The staff and burgonet of thy fair fame. 



Nor mind you. Madam, how in Surluse 

once, 
When all the estates were met, and no- 
ble judges, 
Armed clean with shields, set round to 

keep the right. 
Before you sitting throned withGalahault 
In great array, on fair green quilts of 

samite, 
Rich, ancient, fringed with gold, seven 

summer days, 
And all before the Earls of Northgalies, 
Such service then with this old sword 

was wrought. 
To crown thy beauty in the courts of 

Fame, 
That in that time fell many noble 

knights. 
And all men marvelled greatly ? So 

when last 
The loud horns blew to lodging, and we 

supped 
With Palamedes and with Lamorak, 
All those great dukes and kings, and 

famous queens. 
Beholding us with a deep joy, avouched 
Across the golden cups of costly wine 
' There is no Queen of love but Guene- 
vere, 
And no true knight but Launcelot of the 

Lake ! ' " 

Thus he, transported by the thought of 
daj's 

And deeds that, like the mournful mar- 
tial sounds 

Blown through sad towns where some 
dead king goes by, 

Made music in the chambers of his heart. 

Swept by the mighty memory of the past. 

Nor spake the sorrowful Queen, nor from 
deep muse 

Unbent the giieving beauty of her brows, 

But held her heart's proud pain superbly 
still. 

But when he lifted up his looks, it seemed 
Something of sadness in the ancient 

place. 
Like dying breath from lips beloved of 

yore. 
Or unforgotten touch of tender hands 
After long years, upon his spirit fell. 
For near the carven casement hung the 

bird. 
With hood and jess, that oft had led 

them forth, 



372 



THE PARTING OF LAUNCELOT AND GUENEVERE. 



These lovers, through the heart of rip- 
pling woods 
At morning, in the old and pleasant time. 
And o'er the broidered canopies of state 
Blazed Uther's dragons, curious, wrought 

with gems. 
Then to his mind that dear and distant 

dawn 
Came back, when iirst, a boy at Arthur's 

court, 
He paused abasht before the youthful 

Queen. 
And, feeling now her long imploring gaze 
Holding him in its sorrow, when he 

marked 
How changed her state, and all unlike 

to her. 
The most renowned beauty of the time, 
And pearl of chivalry, for whom himself 
All on a summer's day broke, long of 

yore 
A hundred lances in the field, he sprang 
And caught her hand, and, falling to one 

knee, 
Arched all his haughty neck to a quick 

kiss. 
And there was silence. Silently the 

West 
Grew red and redder, and the day de- 
clined. 

As o'er the hungering heart of some deep 

sea, 
That swells against the planets and the 

moon 
With sad continual strife and vain un- 
rest. 
In silence rise and roll the laboring 

clouds 
That bind the thunder, o'er the heaving 

heart 
Of Guenevere all sorrows fraught with 

love. 
All stormysorrows, in that silence passed. 
And like a star in that tumultuous night 
Love waxed and waned, and came and 

went, changed hue. 
And was and was not : till the cloud 

came down, 
And all her soul dissolved in showers : 

and love 
Rose through the broken storm : and, 

with a cry 
Of passion sheathed in sharpest pain, she 

stretched 
Wide her warm arms : she rose, she 

reeled, and fell 



(All her great heart unqueened) upon ' 

the breast 
Of Launcelot ; and, lifting up her voice. 
She wept aloud, "Unhappy that I am," 
She wept, " Unhappy ! Would that I 

had died 
Long since, long ere I loved thee, Laun- 
celot ! 
Would I had died long since ! ere I had 

known 
This pain, which hath become my pun- 
ishment. 
To have thirsted for the sea : to have 

received 
A drop no bigger than a drop of dew ! 
I have done ill," she wept, " I am for- 
lorn, 
Forlorn ! I falter where I stood secure : 
The tower I built is fall'n, is fall'n : the 

staff 
I leaned upon hath broken in my hand. 
And I, disrobed, dethroned, disci'owned, 

and all undone. 
Survive my kingdom, widowed of all 

rule. 
And men shall mock me for a foolish 

Queen. 
For now I see thy love for me is dead. 
Dead that brief love which was the light 

of life. 
And all is dark : and I have lived too 

long. 
For how henceforth, unhappy, shall I 

bear 
To dwell among these halls where we 

have been ? 
How keep these chambers emptied of thy 

voice ? 
The walks where we have lingered long 

ago. 
The gardens and the places of our love. 
Which shall recall the days that come 

no more. 
And all the joy which has been ? " 

Thus o'erthrown, 
And on the breast of Launcelot weeping 

wild — 
Weeping and murmuring ^ — hung Queen 

Guenevere. 
But, while she wept, upon her brows 

and lips 
Warm kisses fell, warm kisses wet with 

tears. 
For all his mind was melted with remorse, 
And all his scorn was killed, and all his 

heart 
Gave way in that caress, and all the love 



THE PARTING OF LAUNCELOT AND GUENEVERE. 



373 



Of happier years rolled down upon his 

soul 
Redoubled ; and he bowed his head, and 

cried, 

" Though thou be variable as the waves, 
More sharp than winds among the Heb- 
rides 
That shut the frozen Spring in stormy 

clouds, 
As wayward as a child, and all unjust, 
Yet must I love thee in despite of pain. 
Thou peerless Queen of perfect love ! 

Thou star 
That draw'st all tides ! Thou goddess 

far above 
My heart's \^ak worship ! so adored thou 

art. 
And I so irretrievably all thine ! 
But now I will arise, as thou hast said. 
And join the King : and these thine 

enemies 
Shall know thee not defenceless any 

more. 
For, either, living, I yet hold my life 
To arm for thine, or, dying, by my death 
Will steep love's injured honor in such 

blood 
Shall wash out every stain ! And so 

farewell. 
Beloved. Forget me not when I am far. 
But in thy prayers and in thine evening 

thoughts 
Remember me : as I, when sundown 

crowns 
The distant hills, and Ave-Mary rings, 
Shall pine for thee on ways where thou 

art not." 

So these two lovers in one long embrace, 
An agony of reconcilement, hung 
Blinded in tears and kisses, lip to lip. 
And tranced from past and future, time 
and space. 

But by this time, the beam of the slope 

day. 
Edging blue mountain glooms with sullen 

gold, 
A dying fire, fell mournfully athwart 
The purple chambers. In the courts 

below 
The shadow of the keep from wall to wall 
Shook his dark skirt : great chimes began 

to sound, 
And swing, and rock in glimmering 

heights, and roll 



A reeling music down : but ere it fell 
Faint bells in misty spires adown the vale 
Caught it, and bore it floating on to 
night. 

So from that long love-trance the envious 

time 
Reclaimed them. Then with a great 

pang he rose 
Like one that plucked his heart out from 

his breast, 
And, bitterly unwinding her white arms 
From the warm circle of their amorous fold, 
Left living on her lips the lingering heat 
Of one long kiss : and, gathering strong- 
ly back 
His poured-out anguish to his soul, he 
went. 

And the sun set. 

Long while she sat alone, 
Searching the silence with her fixed eyes, 
While far and farther off o'er distant 

floors 
The intervals of brazen echoes fell. 
A changeful light, from varying passions 

caught. 
Flushed all her stately cheek from whit© 

to red 
In doubtful alternation, as some star 
Changes his fiery beauty : for her blood 
Set headlong to all wayward moods of 

sense, 
Stirred with swift ebb and flow ; till 

suddenly all 
The frozen heights of grief fell loosed, 

fast, fast. 
In cataract over cataract, on her soul. 
Then at the last she i-ose, a reeling shape 
That like a shadow swayed against the 

wall, 
Her slight hand held upon her bosom, 

and fell 
Before the Virgin Mother on her knees. 
There, in a halo of the silver shrine. 
That touched and turned to starlight her 

slow tears. 
Below the feet of the pale-pictured saint 
She lay, poured out in prayer. 

Meanwhile, without, 
A sighing rain from a low fringe of cloud 
Whispered among the melancholy hills. 
The night's dark limits widened: far 

above 
The crystal sky lay open : and the star 



874 



A SUNSET FANCY.— ASSOCIATION'S. 



Of eve, his rosy circlet trembling clear, 
Grew large and bright, and in the silver 

moats. 
Between the accumulated terraces, 
Tangled a trail of iire : and all was still. 



A SUNSET FANCY. 

Just at sunset, I would be 
In some isle-garden, where the sea 
I look into shall seem more blue 
Than those dear and deep eyes do. 
And, if anywhere the breeze 
Shall have stirred the cypress-trees. 
Straight the yellow light falls through, 
Catching me, for once, at ease ; 
Just so much as may impinge 
Some tall lily with a tinge 
Of orange ; while, above the wall, 
Tumbles downward into view 
(With a sort of small surprise) 
^One star more among them all, 
For me to watch with half-shut eyes. 

Or else upon the breezy deck 

Of some felucca ; and one speck 

'Twixt the crimson and the yellow. 

Which may be a little fleck 

Of cloud, or gull with outstretcht neck, 

To Spezia bound from Cape Circello ; 

With a sea- song in my ears 

Of the bronzed l)uccaneers : 

While the night is waxing mellow, 

And the helmsman slackly steers, — 

Leaning, talking to his fellow, 

Wbo has oaths for all he hears, — 

Each thief swarthier than Othello. 

Or, in fault of better things. 

Close in sound of one who sings 

To casements, in a southern city ; 

Tinkling upon tender strings 

Some melodious old love-ditty ; 

While a laughing lady flings 

One rose to him, just for pity. 

But 1 have not any want 

Sweeter than to be with you. 

When the long light falleth slant, 

And heaven turns a darker blue ; 

j\nd a deeper smile grows through 

The glance asleep 'neath those soft lashes. 

Which the heart it steals into 

First inspires and then abashes. 

Just to hold your hand, — one touch 

So light you scarce should feel it such ! 

Just to watch you leaning o'er 

Those window-roses, love, ... no more. 



ASSOCIATIONS. 

You know the place is just the same ! 

The rooks build here : the sandy hill is 
Ablaze with broom, as when she came 
Across the sea with her new name 

To dwell among the moated lilies. 

The trifoly is on the -walls : 

The daisies in the bowling-alley : 

The ox at eve lows from the stalls ; 

At eve the cuckoo, floating, calls, 

When foxgloves tremble in the valley. 

The iris blows from court to court : 

The bald white spider flits, or stays in 
The chinks behind the dragonwort : 
That Triton still, at his old sport, 
Blows bubbles in his broken basin. 

The terrace where she used to walk 

Still shines at noon between the roses : 
The garden paths are blind with chalk : 
The dragon-fly from stalk to stalk 
Swims sparkling blue till evening 
closes. 

Then, just above that long dai-k copse, 

Onewarm red star comes out, and passes 
Westward, and mounts, and mounts, and 

stops 
(Or seems to) o'er the turret-tops, 
And lights those lonely casement- 
glasses. 

Sir Kalph still wears that old grim smile. 

The staircase creaks as up I clamber 
To those still rooms, to muse awhile. 
I see the little meadow-stile 

As I lean from the great south-chamber. 

And Lady Euth is just as white. 

(Ah, still, that face seems strangely 
like her !) 
The lady and the wicked knight^ 
All just the same — she swooned for 
fright — 
And he — his arm stiU raised to strike 
her. 

Her boudoir — no one enters there : 
The very flowers which last she gath- 
ered 
Are in the vase ; the lute — the chair — 
And all things — just as then they were ! 
Except the jasmins, — those are with- 
ered. 



MEETING AGAIK.— AT HER CASEMENT. 



375 



But when along tlie corridors 

The last red pause of day is streaming, 
I seem to hear her up the iloors : 
I seem to see her through the doors : 

And then I know that I am dreamincr. 



MEETING AGAIN. 

Yes ; I remember the white rose. And 

sincathen the young ivy has grown ; 
From your window we could not reach it, 

and now it is over the stone. 
We did not part as we meet, Dear. Well, 

Time ^ath his own stern cures ! 
And Alice's eyes are deeper, and her hair 

has grown like yours. 

Is our greeting all so strange then ? But 

there 's something here amiss, 
When it is not well to speak kindly. And 

the olives are ripe by this. 
I had not thought you so altered. But 

all is changed, God knows ! 
Good-night. It is night so soon now. Look 

there! you have dropt your rose. 

Nay, I have one that is withered and 

dearer to me. I came 
To say good night, little Alice. She does 

not remember my name. 
It is but the damp that is making my 

head and my heart ache so. 
I never was strong in the old time, as the 

others were, you know. 

And you '11 sleep weU, will you not, Dar- 
ling? The old words sound so dear! 

'T is the last time I shall use them ; you 
need show neither anger nor fear. 

It is well that yoit look so cheerful. And 
is time so smooth with you ? 

How foolish I am ! Good night. Dear. 
And bid Alice good night too. 



ARISTOCRACY. 



To thee be all men heroes : every race 
Noble : all women virgins : and each 

place 
A temple : know thou nothing that is 

base. 



THE MERMAIDEN. 

He was a Prince with golden hair 

(In a palace beside the sea), 
And 1 but a poor Mermaiden, — - 

And how should he care for me ? 

Last summer I came, in the long blue 
nights, 

To sit in the cool sea-caves : 
Last summer he came to count the stars 

From his terrace above the waves. 

There 's nothing so fair in the sea down 
there 
As the light on his golden tresses : 
There 's nothing so sweet as his voice : 
ah, nothing 
So warm as the warmth of his kisses ! 

I could not help but love him, love him, 
Till my love grew pain to me. 

And to-morrow he weds the Princess 
In that palace beside the sea. 



AT HER CASEMENT. 

I AM knee-deep in grass, in this warm 

June night. 
In the shade here, shut off from the great 

moonlight. 
All alone, at her casement there. 
She sits in the light, and she combs her 

hair. 
She shale es it over the carven seat. 
And combs it down to her stately feet. 
And I watch her, hid in the blue June 

night. 
Till my soul grows faint with the costly 

sight. 
There 's no flaw on that fair fine brow of 

hers. 
As fair and as proud as Lucifer's. 
She looks in the glass as she turns her 

head : 
She knows that the rose on her cheek is 

red : 
She knows how her dark eyes shine, — 

their light 
Would scarcely be dimmed though I 

died to-night. 

I would that there in her chamber I 

stood, 
Full-face to her terrible beauty : I would 



376 



A FAREWELL— AN EVENING IN TUSCANY. 



I were laid on her queenly breast, at her 

lips, 
With her warm hair wound through my 

finger-tips, 
Draining her soul at one deep-drawn kiss. 
And I would be humbly content for this 
To die, as is due, before the morn, 
Killed by her slowly returning scorn. 



A FAREWELL. 

Be happy, child. The last wild words 

are spoken. 
To-morrow, mine no more, the world will 

claim thee. 
I blame thee not. But all my life is 

broken. 
Of that brief Past I have no single token. 
Never in years to come my lips shall 

name thee, 
Never, child, never ! 

I will not say " Forget me " ; nor those 

hours 
Which were so sweet. Some scent dead 

leaves retain. 
Keep all the flowers I gave thee — all 

the flowers 
Dead, dead ! Though years on years of 

life were ours, 
As we have met we shall not meet again ; 
Forever, child, forever ! 



AN EVENING IN TUSCAl^Y. 

Look ! the sun sets. Now 's the rarest 
Hour of all the blessed day. 

(Just the hour, love, you look fairest ! ) 
Even the snails are out to play. 

Gool the breeze mounts, like this Chianti 
Which I drain down to the sun. 

— There ! shut up that old green Dante, — 
Turn the page, where we begun, 

At the last news of Ulysses, — 

A grand image, iit to close 
Just such grand gold eves as this is, 

Full of splendor and repose ! 

So loop up those long bright tresses, — 

Only, one or two must fall 
Down your warm neck Evening kisses 

Through the soft curls spite of all. 



Ah, but rest in your still place there ! 

Stir not — turn not ! the warm pleasure 
Coming, going in your face there, 

And the rose (no richer treasure) 

In your bosom, like my love there, 
Just half secret and half seen ; 

And the soft light from above there 
Streaming o'er you where you lean, 

With your fair head in the shadow 
Of that grass-hat's glancing brim, 

Like a daisy in a meadow 
Which its own deep fringes dim. - 

you laugh, — you cry " What folly ! " 
Yet you 'd scarcely have me wise, 

If I judge right, judging wholly 
By the secret in your eyes. 

But look down now, o'er the city 
Sleeping soft among the hills, — 

Our dear Florence ! That great Pitti 
With its steady shadow fills 

Half the town up : its unwinking 
Cold white windows, as they glare 

Down the long streets, set one thinking 
Of the old dukes who lived there ; 

And one pictures those strange men so ! — 
Subtle brains, and iron thews ! 

There, the gardens of Lorenzo, — 
The long cypress avenues 

Creep up slow the stately hillside 
Where the meiTy loungers are. 

But far more I love this still side, — 
The blue plain you see so far ! 

Where the shore of bright white villas 

Leaves ofi" faint : the purple breadths 
Of the olives and the willows : 
Andthegold-rimmedmountain-widths: 

All transfused in slumbrous glory 

To one burning point — the sun ! i 

But up here, — slow, cold, and hoary j 
Reach the olives, one by one : 

And the land looks fresh : the yellow 
Arbute-berries, here and there. 

Growing slowly ripe and mellow 
Through a flush of rosy hair. 

For the Tramontana last week 
Was about : 't is scarce three weeks 



SONG. 



377 



Sinre the snow lay, one white vast streak, 
Upon those old purple peaks. 

So to-day among the grasses 

One may piuk up tens and twelves 

Of young olives, as one passes, 
Blown about, and by themselves 

Blackening sullen-ripe. The corn too 
Grows each day from green to golden. 

The large-eyed wind-flowers forlorn too 
Blow among it, unheholden : 

Some wliite, some crimson, others 
Purple blackening to the heart. 

From the deep wheat-sea, which smothers 
Their brigliiglobes up, how they start ! 

And the small wild pinks from tender 

Feather-grasses peep at us : 
While above them burns, on slender 

Stems, the red gladiolus : 

And the grapes are green : this season 
They '11 be round and sound and true. 

If no after-blight should seize on 
Those young bunches turning blue. 

O that night of purple weather ! 

(Just before the moon had set) 
You remember how together 

We walked home ? — the grass was 
wet — 

The long grass in the Podere — 
With the balmy dew among it : 

And that nightingale — the fairy 
Song he sung — how he sung it ! 

And the fig-trees had grown heavy 
With the young figs white and woolly, 

And the hre-flies, bevy on bevy 
Of soft sparkles, pouring fully 

Their warm life through trance on trances 
Of thick citron-shades behind. 

Rose, like swarms of loving fancies 
Through some rich and pensive mind. 

So we reached the loggia. Leaning 
Faint, we sat there in the shade. 

Neither spoke. The night's deep mean- 
ing 
Filled the silence up unsaid. 

Hoarsely through the cypress alley 
A civetta out of tune 



Tried his voice by fits. The valley 
Lay all dark below the moon. 

Until into song you burst out, — 
That old song I made for you 

When we found our rose, — the first out 
Last sweet Springtime in the dew. 

Well ! . . . ifthings had gone lesswildly — • 

Had I settled down before 
There, in England — labored mildly — 

And been patient — and learned more 

Of how men should live in London — 
Been less happy — or more wise — 

Left no great works tried, and undone — ■ 
Never looked in your soft eyes — 

I . . . but what 's the use of thinking ? 

There ! our nightingale begins — 
Now a rising note — now sinking 

Back in little broken rings 

Of warm song that spread and eddy — 
Now he picks up heart — and draws 

His great music, slow and steady, 
To a silver-centred pause ! 

SONG. 

The purple iris hangs his head 

On his lean stalk, and so declines : 
The spider spills his silver thread 

Between the bells of columbines : 
An altered light in flickering eves 

Draws dews through these dim eyes of 

ours : 
Death walks in yonder waning bowers. 
And burns the blistering leaves. 
Ah, well-a-day ! 
Blooms overblow : 
Suns sink away : 
Sweet things decay. 

The drunken beetle, roused ere night, 
Breaks blundering from the rotting 
rose. 
Flits through blue spidery aconite. 
And hums, and comes, and goes : 
His thick, bewildered song receives 
A drowsy sense of grief like ours : 
He hums and hums among the bowers, 
And bangs about the leaves. 
Ah, well-a-day ! 
Hearts overflow : 
Joy flits away : 
Sweet things decay. 



378 



SEASIDE SONGS. 



Her yellow stars the jasmin drops 

lu mildewed mosses one by one : 
The hollyhocks fall off their tops : 

The lotus-blooms ail white i' the sun : 
The freckled foxglove faints and grieves : 
The smooth-paced slumbrous slug de- 
vours 
The gluey globes of gorgeous flowers, 
And smears the glistering leaves ! 
Ah, well-a-day ! 
Life leaves us so. 
Love dare not stay. 
Sweet things decay. 

From brazen sunflowers, orb and fringe, 
The burning burnish dulls and dies : 
Sad Autumn sets a sullen tinge 

Upon the scornful peonies : 
The dewy frog limps out, and heaves 
A speckled lump in speckled bowers : 
A reeking moisture, clings and lowers 
The lips of lapping leaves. 
Ah, well-a-day ! 
Ere the cock crow. 
Life's charmed array 
Keels all away. 



SEASIDE SONGS. 

I. 

Drop down below the orbed sea, 

lingering light in glowing skies. 
And bring my own true-love to me — 
My dear true-love across the sea — 
"With tender-lighted eyes. 

For now the gates of Night are flung 
Wide open her dark coasts among : 
And the happy stars crowd up, and up, 
Like bubbles that brighten, one by 
one, 
To the dark wet brim of some glowing 
cup 
Filled full to the parting sun. 

And moment after moment grows 
In grandeur up from deep to deep 
Of darkness, till the night hath 

clomb. 
From star to star, heaven's highest 
dome. 
And, like a new thought born in sleep. 
The slumbrous glory glows, and glows : 
While, far below, a whisper goes 



That heaves the happy sea : 
For o'er faint tracts of fragrance wide, 
A rapture pouring up the tide — 
A freshness through the heat — a sweet, 
Uncertain sound, like fairy feet — 

The west-wind blows my love to me. 

Love-laden from the lighted west 
Thou comest, with thy soul opprest 
For joy of him : all up the dim, 

Delicious sea blow fearlessly, 
Warm wind, that art the tenderest 
Of all that bieathe from south or west, 

Blow whispers of him up the sea : 
Upon my cheek, and on my breast. 
And on the lips which he hath prest. 

Blow all his kisses back to me ! 

Far off, the dark green rocks about. 
All night shines, faint and fair, the far 
light; 
Far off, the lone, late fishers shout 
From boat to boat i' the listening star- 
light : 
Far off, and fair, the sea lies bare, 
Leagues, leagues beyond the reach of 
rowing : 
Up creek and horn the smooth wave 
swells 
And falls asleep ; or, inland flowing. 
Twinkles among the silver shells. 
From sluice to sluice of shallow wells ; 
Or, down dark pools of purple glow- 

Sets some forlorn star trembling there 

In his own dim, dreamlike biilliancy. 
And I feel the dark sails growing 

Nearer, clearer, up the sea : 

And I catch the warm west blowing 

All my own love's sighs to me : 
On the deck I hear them singing 

Songs they sing in my own land : 
Lights are swinging : bells are ringing : 

On the deck I see him stand ! 



IL 

The day is down into his bower : 
In languid lights his feet he steeps : 

The flusht sky darkens, low and lower. 
And closes on the glowing deeps. 

In creeping curves of yellow foam 
Up shallow sands the waters slide : 

And warmly blow what whispers roam 
From isle to isle the lulled tide : 



THE SUMMER-TIME THAT WAS.— ELAYNE LE BLANC. 



379 



The boats are drawn : the nets drip 
bright : 
Dark casements gleam : old songs are 
sung : 
And ont upon the verge of night 

Green lights from lonely rocks are hung. 

winds of eve that somewhere rove 
Where darkest sleeps the distant sea, 

Seek out where haply dreams my love, 
And whisper all her dreams to me ! 



THE SUMMER-TIME THAT WAS. 

The swallow is not come yet ; 

The river-bapks are brown ; 
The woodside walks are dumb yet. 

And dreary is the town. 
I miss a face from the window, 

A footstep from the grass ; 
I miss the boyhood of my heart, 

And tlie summer-time that was. 

How shall I read the books I read. 

Or meet the men I met ? 
I thought to find her rose-tree dead, 

But it is growing yet. 
And the river winds among the flags. 

And the leaf lies on the grass. 
But I walk alone. My hopes are gone. 

And the summer-time that was. 



ELAYNE LE BLANC. 

THAT sweet season on the April-verge 

Of womanhood ! When smiles are toucht 
with tears, 

And all the unsolaced summer seems to 
grieve 

With some blind want : when Eden- 
exiles feel 

Their Paradisal parentage, and search 

Even yet some fragrance through the 
thorny years 

From reachless gardens guarded by the 
sword. 

Then those that brood above the fallen 

sun, 
Or lean from lonely casements to the 

moon, 
Turn round and miss the touching of a 

hand : 
Then sad thoughts seem to be more sweet 

than gay ones : 



Then old songs have a sound as pitiful 
As dead friends' voices, sometimes heard 

in dreams : 
And all a-tiptoe for some great event, 
The Present waits, her iinger at her lips. 
The while the pensive Past with meek 

pale palms, 
Crost (where a child should lie) on her 

cold breast. 
And wistful eyes forlorn, stands mutely 

by. 

Reproaching Life with some unuttered 

loss ; 
And the heart pines, a prisoned Danae, 
Till some God comes, and makes the air 

all golden. 

In such a mood as this, at such an hour 
As makes sad thoughts fall saddest on 

the soul. 
She, in her topmost bower all alone, 
High-up among the battlemented roofs, 
Leaned from the lattice, where the road 

runs by 
To Camelot, and in the bulrush beds 
The marish river shrinks his stagnant 

horn. 
All round, along the spectral arras, 

gleamed 
(With faces pale against the dreary light, 
Forms of great Queens — the women of 

old times. 
She felt their frowns upon her, and their 

smiles. 
And seemed to hear their garments rus- 
tling near. 
Her lute lay idle her love-books among : 
And, at her feet, flung by, the broidered 

scarf. 
And velvet mantle. On the vei-ge of 

night 
She saw a bird float by, and wished for 

wings : 
She heard the hoarse frogs quarrel in the 

marsh : 
And now and then, with drowsy song 

and oar. 
Some dim barge sliding slow from bridge 

to bridge, 
Down the white river past, and far 

behind 
Left a new silence. Then she fell to 

muse 
Unto what end she came into this earth 
Whose reachless beauty made her heart 

so sad, 
As one that loves, but hopes not, inly ails 



380 



ELAYNE LE BLANC. 



In gazing on some fair unloving face. 
Anon, there dropt down a great gulf of 

sky 
A star she knew ; and as she looked at 

it, 
Down-drawn through her intensity of 

gaze, 
One angry ray fell tangled in her tears, 
And dashed its blinding brightness in 

her eyes. 
She turned, and caught her lute, and 

pensively 
Eippled a random music down the 

strings, 
And sang ... 

All night the moonbeams bathe the 
the sward. 
There's not an eye to-night inJoyous- 

Gard 
That is not dreaming something sweet. 

I wake 
Because it is more sweet to dream awake : 
Dreaming 1 see thy face upon the lake. 

I am come up from far, love, to behold 

thee. 
That hast waited for me so bravely and 

well 
Thy sweet life long (for the Fairies had 

told thee 
I am the Knight that shall loosen the 

spell), 
And to-morrow morn mine arms shall 

infold thee : 
And to-morrow night . . . ah, who can 

tell? 

As the spirit of some dark lake 
Pines at nightfall, wild-awake. 
For the approaching consummation 
Of a great moon he divines 
Coming to her coronation 
Of the dazzling stars and signs, 
So my heart, my heart, 
Darkly (ah, and tremblingly !) 
'Waits in mystic expectation 
(From its wild source far apart) 
tlntil it be filled with thee, — 
With the full -orbed light of thee, — ' 
beloved as thou art ! 
With the soft sad smile that flashes 
Underneath thy long dark lashes ; 
And thy floating raven hair 
From its wi'eathed pearls let slip ; 
And thy breath, like balmy air ; 
And thy warm wet rosy lip, 



With my first kiss lingering there ; 
Its sweet secret unrevealed, — 
Sealed by me, to me unsealed ; 
And . . . but, ah ! she lies asleep 
In yon gray stone castle-keep, 
Oji her lids the happy tear; 
And alone I linger here ; 
And to-moiTow morn the fight ; 
And ... ah, me ! to-morrow night ? 

Here she brake, trembling, off ; and on 

the lute. 
Yet vibrating through its melodious 

nerves, 
A great tear plashed and tinkled. For 

a while 
She sat and mused ; and, heavily, drop 

by drop. 
Her tears fell down ; then through them 

a slow smile 
Stole, full of April-sweetness ; and she 

sang — 
— It was a sort of ballad of the sea : 
A song of weather-beaten mariners, 
Gray-headed men that had survived all 

winds 
And held a perilous sport among the 

waves, 
Who yet sang on with hearts as bold as 

when 
They cleared their native harbor with a 

shout. 
And lifted golden anchors in the sun. 

Merrily, merrily drove our barks, — 
Merrily up from the morning beach ! 
And the brine broke under the prows in 

sparks ; 
For a spirit sat high at the helm of each. 
We sailed all day ; and, when day was 

done. 
Steered after the wake of the sunken 

sun. 
For we meant to follow him out of reach 
Till the golden dawn was again begun. 

With lifted oars, with shout and song, 
Merry mariners all were we ! 
Every heart beat stout and strong. 
Through aU the world you would not 

see, 
Though you should journey wide and 

long, ) 

A comelier company. 
And where, the echoing creeks among. 
Merrily, steadily, 
From bay to bay our barks did fall. 



ELAYNE LE BLANC. 



381 



You might hear us singing, one and all, 
A song of the mighty sea. 
But, just at twilight, down the rocks 
Dim forms trooped fast, and clearer 

grew : 
For out upon the sea-sand came 
The island-people, whom we knew. 
And called us : — girls with glowing 

locks ; 
And sunburnt boys that tend the herd 
Far up the vale ; gray elders too 
With silver beards : — their cries we 

heard : 
They called us, each one by his name. 

*' Could ye not wait a little while," 
"We heard them sing, "for all our sakes ? 
A little whilS*, in this old isle," 
They sung, " among the silver lakes ? 
For here," they sung, "from horn to 

horn 
Of flowery bays the land is fair : 
The hillside glows with grapes : the 

corn 
Grows golden in the vale down there. 
Our maids are sad for you," they sung : 
" Against the field no sickle falls : 
Upon the trees our harps are hung : 
Our doors are void : and in the stalls 
The little foxes nest ; among 
The herd-roved hills no shepherd calls ; 
Your brethren mourn for you," they 

sung. 
"Here weep your wives: here passed 

your lives 
Among the vines, when you were young : 
Here dwell your sires : your household 

fires 
Grow cold. Return ! return ! " they 



Then each one saw his kinsman stand 
Upon the shore, and wave his hand : 
And each grew sad. But still we sung 
Our ocean-chorus bold and clear ; 
And still upon our oars we hung. 
And held our course with steadfast cheer. 
" For we are bound for distant shores," 
We cried, and faster swept our oars ; 
" We pine to see the faces there 
Of men whose deeds we heard long since. 
Who haunt our dreams : gray heroes : 

kings 
Wliose fame the wandering minstrel 

sings : 
And maidens, too, more fair than ours. 
With deeper eyes and softer hair, 



Like hers that left her island bowers 
To wed the sullen Cornish Prince 
Who keeps his court upon the hill 
By the gray coasts of Tyntagill, 
And each, before he dies, must gain 
Some fairy-land across the main." 

But still "return, beloved, return !" 
The simple island-people sung : 
And still each mariner's heart did burn, 
As each his kinsman could discern, 
Those dim green rocks among. 

" O'er you the rough sea-blasts will 

blow," 
They sung, "while here the skies are 

fair ; 
Our paths are through the fields we 

know : 
And yours you know not where." 

But we waved our hands . . . "farewell ! 

farewell ! " 
We cried ..." our white sails flap the 

mast : 
Our course is set : our oars are wet : 
One day," we cried, " is nearly past : 
One day at sea ! Farewell ! farewell ! 
No more with you we now may dwell ! " 

And the next day we were driving free 
(With never a sail in sight) 
Over the face of the mighty sea, 
And we counted the stars next night 
Rise over us by two and three 
With melancholy light : 
A grave-eyed, earnest company, — 
And all round the salt foam white ! 

With this, she ceased, and sighed . . . 

" though I were far, 
I know yon moated iris would not shed 
His purple crown : yon clover-field would 

ripple 
As merry in the waving wind as now : 
As soft the Spring down this bare hill 

would steal, 
And in the vale below fling all her 

flowers : 
Each year the wet primroses star the 

woods : 
And violets muffle the sharp rivulets : 
Round this lone casement's solitary panes 
The wandering ivy move and mount each 

year : 
Each year the red wheat gleam near river- 
banks : 



382 



ELAYNE LE BLANC. 



While, ah, with each my memory from 

the hearts 
Of men ■would fade, and from their lips 

my name. 
which were best — the wide, the windy 

sea, 
With golden gleams of undiscovered 

lands, 
Odors, and murmurs — orthe placid Port, 
From wanton winds, from scornful waves 

secure, 
Under the old, green, happy hills of 

home ? " 
She sat forlorn, and pondered. Night 

was near, 
And, marshalling o'er the hills her dewy 

camps, 
Came down the outposts of the sentinel 

stars. 
All in the owlet light she sat forlorn. 

Now hostel, hall, and grange, that eve 

were crammed : 
The town being choked to bursting of 

the gates : 
For there the King j'et lay with all his 

Earls, 
And the Round Table, numbering all 

save one. 

On many a curving terrace which o'er- 
hung 

The long gray river, swan-like, through 
the green 

Of quaintest yews, moved, pacing state- 
ly by, _ 

The lovely ladies of King Arthur's couil;. 

Sighing, she eyed them from that lonely 
keep. 

The Dragon-banners o'er the turrets 

drooped, 
The heavy twilight hanging in their folds. 
And now and then, from posterns in the 

wall 
The Knights stole, lingering for some 

last Good-night, 
Whispered or sighed through closing 

lattices ; 
Or paused with reverence of bending 

plumes. 
And lips on jewelled fingers gayly prest. 
The silver cressets shone from pane to 

pane : 
And tapers flitted by with flitting forms : 
Clanged the dark streets with clash of 

iron heels : 



Or fell a sound of coits in clattering 

courts. 
And drowsy horse-boys singing in the 

straw. 

These noises floated upward. And 

within. 
From the great Hall, forever and anon. 
Brake gusts of revel ; snatches of wild 

song. 
And laughter ; where her sire among his 

men 
Caroused between the twilight and the 

dark. 
The silence round about her where she 

sat, 
Vext in itself, grew sadder for the sound. 
She closed her eyes : before them seemed 

to float 
A dream of lighted revels, — dance and 

song 
In Guenver's palace : gorgeous tourna- 
ments ; 
And rows of glittering eyes about the 

Queen 
(Like stars in galaxies around the moon), 
That sparkled recognition down below, 
Where I'ode the Knights amort with lance 

and plume ; 
And each his lad j'^'s sleeve upon his helm : 
Murmuring. . . "none ride for me. Am 

I not fair. 
Whom men call the White Flower of 

Astolat ? " 

Far, far without, the wild gray marish 

spread, 
A heron startled from the pools, and 

flapped 
The water from his wings, and skirred 

away. 
The last long limit of the dying light 
Dropped, all on fire, behind an iron 

cloud : 
And, here and there, through some wild 

chasm of blue. 
Tumbled a star. The mist upon the 

fens 
Thickened. A billowy opal grew i' the 

crofts. 
Fed on the land, and sucked into itself 
Paling and park, close copse and bush- j 

less down, ^ 1 

Changing the world for Fairies. ^ 

Then the moon 
In the low east, unprisoned from black 

bars 



TO 



— QUEEN GUENEVERE. 



383 



Of stagnant fog (a white light, wrought 

to the full, 
Summed in a perfect orb) rose suddenly 

up 
Upon the silence with a great surprise, 
And took the inert landscape unawares. 

White, white, the snaky river : dark the 

banks : 
And dark the folding distance, where 

her eyes 
Were wildly turned, as though the whole 

world lay 
In that far blackness over Carlyel. 
There she espied Sir Launcelot, as he rode 
His coal-black com-ser downward from 

afar, 
For all his affhor glittered aa he went, 
And showed like silver : and his mighty 

shield. 
By dint of knightly combat hackt and 

worn, 
Looked like some cracked and frozen 

moon that hangs 
By night o'er Baltic headlands all alone. 

TO . 

As, in lone fairy-lands, up some rich 

shelf 
Of golden sand the wild wave moaning- 

ly 

Heaps its unvalued sea- wealth, weed and 
gem, 

Then creeps back slow into the salt sad 
sea: 

So from my life's new searched deeps to 
thee. 

Beloved, I cast these weed - flowers. 
Smile on them. 

More than they mean I know not to ex- 
press. 

So I shrink back into my old sad self. 

Far from all words where love lies fath- 
omless. 



QUEEN GUENEVERE. 

Thence, up the sea-green floor, among 

the stems 
Of mighty columns whose unmeasured 

shades 
From aisle to aisle, unheeded in the sun, 
Moved without sound, I, following all 

alone 



A strange desire that drew me like a 

hand. 
Came unawares upon the Queen. 

She sat 
In a great silence, which her beauty 

filled 
Full to the heart of it, on a black chair 
Mailed all about with sullen gems, and 

crusts 
Of sultry blazonry. Her face was bowed, 
A pause of slumbrous beauty, o'er the 

light 
Of some delicious thought new-risen 

above 
The deeps of passion. Round her state- 
ly head 
A single circlet of the red gold fine 
Burned free, from which, on either side 

streamed down 
Twilights of her soft hair, from neck to 

foot. 
Green was her kirtle as the emerolde is. 
And stiff from hem to hem with seams 

of stones 
Beyond all value ; which, from left to 

right 
Disparting, half revealed the snowy gleam 
Of a white robe of spotless samite pure. 
And from the soft repression of her zone, 
Which like a light hand on a lutestring 

pressed 
Harmony from its touch, flowed warmly 

back 
The bounteous outlines of a glowing 

grace. 
Nor yet outflowed sweet laws of loveli- 
ness. 

Then did I feel as one who, much per- 

plext. 
Led by strange legends and the light of 

stars 
Over long regions of the midnight sand 
Beyond the red tract of the Pyramids, 
Is suddenly drawn to look upon the sky 
From sense of unfamiliar light, and sees. 
Revealed against the constellated cope 
The great cross of the South. 

The chamber round 
Was dropt with arras green ; and I 

could hear. 
In courts far ofi", a minstrel praising May, 
Who sang . . . Si douce, si douce est la 

Margarete I 
To a faint lute. Upon the window-sill, 
Hard by a latoun bowl that blazed i' the 

sun 



384 THE NEGLECTED HEART. — HOW THE SONG WAS MADE. 



Perched a strange fowl, a Falcon Pere- 
grine ; 

With all his feathers puft for pride, and 
all 

His courage glittering outward in his eye ; 

For he had flown from far, athwart 
strange lands, 

And o'er the light of many a setting sun, 

Lured by his love (such sovereignty of 
old 

Had Beauty in all coasts of Christendom !) 

To look into the great eyes of the Queen, 



THE NEGLECTED HEART. ; 

TjJIS heart, you would not have, 

i laid up in a grave 

Of song : with love enwound it ; 

And set sweet fancies blowing round it. 

Then I to others gave it ; 

Because you would not have it. 

"See you keep it well," I said ; 

"This heart's sleeping — is not dead ; 

But will wake some future day : 

See you keep it while you may." 

All great Sorrows in the world, — 
Some with crowns upon their heads. 
And in regal purple furled ; 
Some with rosaries and beads ; 
Some with lips of scorning, curled 
At false Fortune ; some, in weeds 
Of mourning and of widowhood. 
Standing tearful and apart, — 
Each one in his several mood, 
Came to take my heart. 

Then in holy ground they set it : 
With melodious weepings wet it : 
And revered it as they found it. 
With wild fancies blowing round it. 

And this heart (you would not have) 
Being not dead, though in the gi'ave. 
Worked miracles and marvels strange, 
And healed many maladies : 
Giving sight to sealed-up eyes, 
And legs to lame men sick for change. 

The fame of it grew great and greater. 
Then said you, " Ah, what 's the matter ? 
How hath this heart I would not take. 
This weak heart a child might break — 
This poor, foolish heart of his — 
Since won worship such as this ? " 



You bethought you then ..." Ah me 
What if this heart, I did not choose 
To retain, hath found the key 
Of the kingdom ? and I lose 
A great power ? Me he gave it : 
Mine the right, and I will have it." 

Ah, too late ! For crowds exclaimed, 
" Ours it is : and hath been claimed. 
Moreover, where it lies, the spot 
Is holy ground : so enter not. 
None but men of mournful mind, — 
Men to darkened days resigned ; 
Equal scorn of Saint and Devil ; 
Poor and outcast ; halt and blind ; 
Exiles from Life's golden revel ; 
Gnawing at the bitter rind 
Of old griefs ; or else, confined 
In proud cares, to serve and grind, — 
May enter : whom this heart shall cure. 
But go thoii by : thou art not poor : 
Nor defrauded of thy lot : 
Bless thyself : but enter not ! " 



APPEARANCES. 

Well, you have learned to smile. 
And no one looks for traces 
Of tears about your eyes. 
Your face is like most faces. 
And who will ask, meanwhile. 
If your face your heart belies ? 

Are you happy ? You look so. 
Well, I wish you what you seem. 
Happy persons sleep so light ! 
In your sleep you never dream ? 
But who would care to know 
What dreams you dreamed last night ? 



HOW THE SONG WAS MADE. 

I SAT low down, at midnight, in a vale 
Mysterious with the silence of blue 
pines : 
White-cloven by a snaky river-tail, 
Uncoiled from tangled wefts of silver 
■ twines. 

Out of a critmbling castle, on a spike 
Of splintered rock, a mile of change- 
less shade 



EETKOSPECTIONS.— THE EUIFED PALACE. 



385 



Gorged half the landscape, Down a 
dismal dike 
Of black hills the sluiced moonbeams 
streamed, and stayed. 

The world lay like a poet in a swoon, 
When God is on him, filled with 
heaven, all through, — 
A dim face full of dreams turned to the 
moon. 
With mild lips moist in melancholy 
dew. 

I plucked bluemugwort, livid mandrakes, 
balls 
Of blossomed nightshade, heads of 
hemlock, long 
White gi-asseSJ grown in oozy intervals 
Of marsh, to make ingredients for a 
song : 

A song of mourning to embalm the 
Past, — 
The corpse-cold Past, — that it should 
not decay ; 
But in dark vaults of memory, to the 
last, 
Endure unchanged : for in some future 
day 

I will bring my new love to look at it 
(Laying aside her gay robes for a mo- 
ment) 
That, seeing what love came to, she may 
sit 
Silent awhile, and muse, but make no 
comment. 



EETKOSPECTIONS. 

To-NiGHT she will dance at the palace, 
With the diamonds in her hair : 

And the Prince will praise her beauty — 
The loveliest lady there ! 

But tones, at times, in the music 
Will bring back forgotten things : 

And her heart will fail her sometimes. 
When her beauty is praised at the 
King's. 

There sits in his silent chamber 

A stern and sorrowful man : 
But a strange sweet dream comes to him. 

While the lamp is burning wan, 
25 



Of a sunset among the vineyards 

In a lone and lovely land, 
And a maiden standing near him, 

With fresh wild-flowers in her hand. 



THY VOICE ACROSS MY SPIEIT 
FALLS. 

Thy voice across my spirit falls 

Like some spent sea-wind through dim 

halls 
Of ocean-kings, left bare and wide 
(Green floors o'er which the sea-weed 

crawls !) 
Where once, long since, in festal pride 
Some Chief, who roved and ruled the tide, 
Among his brethren reigned and died. 

I dare not meet thine eyes ; for so, 
In gazing there, I seem once more 
To lapse away through days of yore 
To homes where laugh and song is o'er, 
Whose inmates each went long ago — 

Like some lost soul, that keeps the sem- 
blance 
On its brow of ancient grace 
Not all faded, wandering back 
To silent chambers, in the track 
Of the twilight, from the Place 
Of retributive Remembrance. 
Ah, turn aside those eyes again ! 
Their light has less of joy than pain. 
We are not now what we were then. 



THE EUINED PALACE. 

Broken are the Palace windows : 

Rotting is the Palace floor. 
The damp wind lifts the arras. 

And swings the creaking door; 
But it only startles the white owl 

From his perch on a monarch's throne. 
And the rat that was gnawing the harp- 
strings 

A Queen once played upon. 

Dare you linger here at midnight 

Alone, when the wind is about. 
And the bat, and the newt, and the viper. 

And the creeping things come out ? 
Beware of these ghostly chambers ! 

Search not what my heart hath been, 
Lest you find a phantom sitting 

Where once there sat a Queen. 



386 



A VISION OF VIRGINS. 



A VISION OF VIRGINS. 
I HAD a vision of tlie night. 

It seemed 

There was a long red tract of barren land, 

Blockt in by black hUls, where a half- 
moon dreamed 

Of morn, and whitened. 

Drifts of dry brown sand, 

This way and that, were heapt below : 
and flats 

Of water : — glaring shallows, where 
strange bats 

Game and went, and moths flickered. 

To the right, 

A dusty road that crept along the waste 

Like a white snake : and, farther up, I 
traced 

The shadow of a great house, far in sight : 

A hundred casements all ablaze with 
light : 

And forms that flit athwart them as in 
haste : 

And a slow music, such as sometimes 
kings 

Command at mighty revels, softly sent 

From viol^and flute, and tabor, and the 
strings 

Of many a sweet and slumbrous instru- 
ment 

That wound into the mute heart of the 
night 

Out of that distance. 

Then I could perceive 

A glory pouring through an open door, 

And in the light five women. I believe 

They wore white vestments, all of them. 
They were 

Quite calm ; and each still face unearth- 
ly fair, 

Unearthly quiet. So like statues all, 

Waiting they stood without that lighted 
hall; 

And in their hands, like a blue star, 
they held 

Each one a silver lamp. 

Then I beheld 

A shadow in the doorway. And One 
came 

Crowned for a feast. I could not see the 
Face. 

The Form was not all human. As the 
flame 

Streamed over it, a presence took the 
place 

"With awe. 



He, turning, took them by the hand, 
And led them each up the white stairway, 

and 
The door closed. 

At that moment the moon dipped 

Behind a rag of purple vapor, ript 

Off" a great cloud, some dead wind, ere it 
spent 

Its last breath, had blown open, and so 
rent 

You saw behind blue pools of light, and 
thei'e 

A wild star swimming in the lurid air. 

The dream was darkened. And a sense 
of loss 

Fell like a nightmare on the land : be- 
cause 

The moon yet lingered in her cloud- 
eclipse. 

Then, in the dark, swelled sullenly across 

The waste a wail of women. 

Her blue lips 

The moon drew up out of the cloud. 

Again 

I had a vision on that midnight plain. 

Five women : and the beauty of despair 
Upon their faces : locks of wxld wet hair. 
Clammy with anguish, wandered low 

and loose 
O'er their bare breasts, that seemed too 

filled with trouble 
To feel the damp crawl of the midnight 

dews 
That trickled down them. One waa 

bent half double, 
A dismayed heap, that hung o'er the last 

spark 
Of a lamp slowly dying. As she blew 
The dull light redder, and the dry wick 

flew 
In crumbling sparkles all about the dark, 
I saw a light of horror in her eyes ; 
A wild light on her flusht cheek ; a wild, 

white ' 

On her dry lips ; an agony of surprise 
Fearfully fair. 

The lamp dropped. From my sight 
She fell into the dark. 

Beside her, sat 
One without motion : and her stern face 

flat 
Against the dark sky. 

One, as still as death, 
Hollowed her hands about her lamp, for 

fear 



LEOLINE. 



387 



Some motion of the midnight, or her 

breath, 
Should fan out the last flicker. Rosy- 
clear 
The light oozed, through her fingers, o'er 

her face. 
There was a ruined beauty hovering there 
Over deep pain, and, dasht -with lurid 

grace 
A waning bloom. 

The light grew dim and blear : 
And she, too, slowly darkened in her 

place. 
Another, with her white hands hotly 

lockt 
About her damp knees, muttering mad- 
ness, locked 
Forward and backward. But at last 

she stopped, 
And her dark head upon her bosom 

dropped 
Motionless. 

Then one rose up with a cry 
To the great moon ; and stretched a 

wrathful arm 
Of wild expostulation to the sky, 
Murmuring, " These earth-lamps fail us ! 

and what harm ? 
Does not the moon shine ? Let us rise 

and haste 
To meet the Bridegroom yonder o'er the 

waste ! 
For now I seem to catch once more the 

tone 
Of viols on the night. 'T were better 

done. 
At worst, to perish near the golden gate. 
And fall in sight of glory one by one. 
Than here all night upon the wild, to 

wait 
Uncertain ills. Away ! the hour is late ! " 

Again the moon dii)ped. 

I could see no'more. 
Not the least gleam of light did heaven 
afford. 

At last, I heard a knocking on a door. 
And some one crying, " Open to us, 

Lord ! " 
There was an awful pause. 

I heard my heart 
Beat. 
Then a Voice — "I know you not. 

Depart." 
I caught, within, a glimpse of glory. 

And 



The door closed. 

Still in darkness dreamed the land. 
I could not see those women. Not a 

breath ! 
Darkness, and awe : a darkness more 

than death. 
The darkness took them. ***** 



LEOLT^E. 

In the molten-golden moonlight, 

In the deep grass warm and dry, • 
We watched the fire-fly rise and swim 

In floating sparkles by. 
All night the hearts of nightingales, 

Song-steeping, slumbrous leaves, 
Flowed to us in the shadow there 

Below the cottage-eaves. 

We sang our songs together 

Till the stars shook in the skies. 
We spoke — we spoke of common things, 

Yet the tears were in our eyes. 
And my hand, — I know it trembled 

To each light warm touch of thine. 
But we were friends, and. only friends, 

My sweet friend, Leoline ! 

How large the white moon looked, Dear ! 

There has not ever been 
Since those old nights the same great 
light 

In the moons which I have seen. 
I often wonder, when I think, 

If you have thought so too. 
And the moonlight has grown dimmer, 
Dear, 

Than it used to be to you. 

And sometimes, when the warm west- 
wind 

Comes faint across the sea. 
It seems that you have breathed on it. 

So sweet it comes to me : 
And sometimes, when the long light 
wanes 

In one deep crimson line, 
I muse, " and does she watch it too, 

Far off, sweet Leoline ? " 

And often, leaning all day long 

My head upon my hands, 
My heart aches for the vanisht time 

In the far fair foreign lauds : 



388 



SPRING AND WINTER. 



Thinking sadly — "Is she happy ? ' 
Has she tears for those old hours ? 

And the cottage iu the starlight ? 
And the songs among the flowers ? " 

One night we sat below the porch, 

v^ud out in that vvai'rn air, 
A fire-tiy, like a dying star. 

Fell tangled in her hair ; ] 

But I kissed him liglitly off agaiiy 

And he glittered up the vine, f 
And died into the darkness 1 

For the love of Leoline ! 

Between two songs of Petrarch 

I 've a purple rose-leaf prest. 
More sweet than common rose-leaves, 

For it once lay in her breast. 
"When she gave me that her eyes were wet. 

The rose was lull of dew. 
The rose is withered long ago : 

The page is blistered too. 

There 's a blue flower in my garden, 

The bee loves more than all : 
The bee and I, we love it both, 

Though it is fiail and small. 
She loved it too, — long, long ago ! 

Her love was less than mine. 
Still we are friends, but only friends, 

My lost love, Leoline ! 



SPRING AND WINTER. 

The world buds every year : / 

But the beort just once, and when ■ 

The blossom falls off sere 

No new blossom comes again. 

Ah, the rose goes with the wind : 

But the thorns remain behind. 

Was it well in him, if he 

Felt not love, to speak of love so ? 
If he still unmoved must be, 

Was it nobly sought to move so ? 
— Pluck the flower,'and yet not wear it- 
Spurn, desj)ise it, yet not spare it ? 

Need he say that I w^as fair, 
With such meaning in his tone. 

Just to speak of one whose hair 
Had the same tinge as my ownJ 

Pluck my life up, root and bloom, 

Just to plant it on her tonab ? 



And she 'd scarce so fair a face 
(So he used to say) as mine : 

And her form had far less grace : 
And her brow was far less tine : 

But 't was just that he loved then 

More than he can love again. 

Why, if Beauty could not bind him, 
Need he praise me, speaking low : 

Use my face just to remind him 

How no face could please him now ? 

Why, if loving could not move him, 

Did he teach me still to love him ? 

And he said my eyes were bright. 
But his own, he said, were dim : 

And my hand, he said, was white. 
But what was that to him ? 

" For," he said, " in gazing at you, 

I seem gazing at a statue." 

"Yes ! " he said, "he had grown wise 
now : 
He had suffered much of yore : 
ut a fair face to his eyes now, ) 
Was a fair face, and no more^ 
'Yet the anguish and the bliss. 
And the dream too, had been his. " 

Then, why talk of "lost romances " 
Being "sick of sentiment ! " 

And what meant those tones and glances 
If real love was never meant ? 

Why, if his own youth were withered, 

Must mine also have been gathered ? 

Why those words a thought too tender 
For the commonplaces spoken ? 

Looks whose meaning seemed to render 
Help to words when speech came bro- 
ken ? 

Why so late in July moonlight 

Just to say what 's said by noonlight ? 

And why praise my youth for gladness, 
Keeping something in his smile 

Which turned all my youth to sadness. 
He still smiling all the while ? 

Since, when so my youth was over 

He said — " Seek some younger lover ! " 

"For the world buds once a year. 
But the heart just once," he said. 

True ! ... so now that Spring is here 
All my flowers, like his, are dead. 

And the rose drops in the wind. 

But the thorns remain behind. 



KING HERMANDIAZ.— THE SWALLOW. 



589 



KING HERMANDIAZ. 

Then, standing by the shore, I saw the 

moon 
Change hue, and dwindle in the west, as 

when 
Warm looks fade inward out of dying 

eyes, 
And the dim sea began to moan. 

I knew 
My hour had come, and to the bark I 

went. 
Still were the stately decks, and hung 

with silk 
Of stoled crimson : at the mast-head 

burned 
A steadfast fire with influence hke a 

star, 
And underneath a couch of gold. I 

loosed 
The dripping chain. There was not any 

wind : 
But all at once the magic sails began 
To belly and heave, and like a bat that 

wakes 
And flits by night, beneath her swarthy 

wings 
The black ship rocked and moved. I 

heard anon 
A humming in the cordage and a sound 
Like bees in summer, and the bark went 

on. 
And on, and on, until at last the world 
Was rolled away and folded out of sight. 
And I was all alone on the great sea. 
There a deep awe fell on my spirit. My 

wound 
Began to bite. I, gazing round, beheld 
A lady sitting silent at the helm, 
A woman white as death, and fair as 

dreams. 
I would have asked her " Whither do we 

sail ? " 
And " how ? " but that my fear clung at 

my heart. 
And held me still. She, answering my 

doubt. 
Said slowly, " To the Isle of Avalon." 

And straightway we were nigh a strand 

all gold. 
That glittered in the moon between the 

dusk 
Of hanging bowers made rich with 

blooms and balms, 
From which faint gusts came to me ; 

and I heard 



A sound of lutes among the vales, and 

songs 
And voices faint like voices throiigh a 

dream 
That said or seemed to say, " Hail, Her- 

mandiaz ! " 



ry' 



v* 



^ ^ SONG. 



1, bia 



In the warm, black mill-pool winking, 
The first doubtful star shines blue : 

And alone here I lie thinking 
such happy thoughts of you ! 

,Up the porch the roses clamber, / 

) And the flowers we sowed last June i 
And the casement of your chamber . J 
) Shines between them to the moon. ) 

( ' 

Look out, Love ! fling wide the lattice : 
Wind the red rose in your hair, 

And the little white clematis 

Which I plucked for you to wear : 

Or come down, and let me hear you 
Singing in the scented grass, 

Through tall cowslips nodding near you, 
Just to touch you as you pass. 

(For, where you pass, the air 
I With warm hints of love grows wise : 
You — the dew on your dim hair. 
And the smile in your soft eyes ! 

From the hayfield comes your brother ; 

There your sisters stand together, 
Singing clear to one another 

Through the dark blue summer weather, 

And the maid the latch is clinking. 

As she lets her lover through : 
But alone. Love, I lie'thinking 
I such tender thoughts of you ! 



THE SWALLOW. 

swALLOVP chirping in the sparkling 
eaves. 
Why hast thou left far south thy fairy 
homes. 
To build between these drenched April- 
leaves, 
And sing me songs of Spring before it 
comes ? 



390 



CONTRABAND, — EVENING. 



Too soon thou singest ! Yon black 
stubborn thorn 
Bursts not a bud : the sneaping wind 
drifts on. 

She that once flung thee crumbs, and in 
the morn 
Sang _ from the lattice where thou 
sing'st, is gone. 

Here is no Sjjring. Thy flight yet fur- 
ther follow. 

Fly off, vain swallow ! 

Thou com'st to mock me with remem- 
bered things. 
I love thee not, bird for me too 

That which I want thou hast, — the gift 

of wings : 
Grief — which I have — thou hast not. 

Ely away ! 
"What hath my roof for thee ? My cold 

dark roof. 
Beneath whose weeping thatch thine 

eggs will freeze ! 
Summer will halt not here, so keep 

aloof. ^ 

Others are gone ; go thou. In those 

wet trees 
I see no Spring, though thou still singest 

of it. 
Fare hence, false prophet ! 



CONTRABAND. 

A HEAP of low, dark, rocky coast. 

Where the blue-black sea sleeps smooth 
and even : 
And the sun, just over the reefs at 
most, 
In the amber part of a pale blue 
heaven : 

A village asleep below the pines. 

Hid up the gray shore from the low 
slow sun : 
And a maiden that lingers among the 
vines. 
With her feet in the dews, and her 
locks undone : 

The half-moon melting out of the 
sky; 
And, just to be seen still, a star here, 
a star there, 



I Faint, high up in the heart of the heaven • 
so liigh ' 

And so faint, you can scarcely be sure 
that they are there. 

And one of that small, black, raking 
craft ; 
Two swivel guns on a round deck 
handy ; 
And a great sloop sail with the wind 
abaft ; 
And four brown thieves round a cask 
of brandy. 

That 's my life, as I left it last. 
And what it may be henceforth I know 
not. 
But all that I keep of the merry Past 
Are trifles like these, which I care to 
show not : — 

A leathern flask, and a necklace of 
pearl ; 
These rusty pistols, this tattered chart, 
Friend, 
And the soft dark half of a raven curl ; 
And, at evening, the thought of a 
true, true heart, Friend. 



EVENING. 

Already evening ! In the duskiest 
nook 
Of yon dusk comer, under the Death's- 
head, 
Between the alembecs, thrust this 
legended, 
And iron-bound, and melancholy book. 
For I will read no longer. The loud brook 
Shelves his sharp light up shallow 

banks thin-spread ; 
The slumbrous west grows slowly red, 
and red : 
Up from the ripened corn her silver hook 

The moon is lifting : and deliciously 
Along the warm blue hills the day de- 
dines : 
The first star brightens while she 

waits for me. 
And round her swelling heart the zone 
grows tight : 
Musing, half-sad, in her soft hair she 
twines 
The white rose, whispering "he will 
come to-night I " 



ADON. — A BIED AT SUNSET. 



391 



ADON. 

I WILL not weep for Adon ! 
I will not waste my breath to draw thick 

sighs 
iFor Spring's dead greenness. All the 

orient skies 
Are husht, and breathing out a bright 

surprise 
Eound morning's marshalling star : Rise, 
Eos, rise ! 
Day's dazzling spears are up : the 

faint stars fade on 
The white hills, — cold, like Adon ! 

O'er crag, and spar, and splinter 
Break dowa^ and roll the amber mist, 

stem light. 
The black pines dream of dawn. The 

skirts of night 
,ire ravelled in the East. And planted 

bright 
In heaven, the roots of ice shine, sharp 
and white, 
In frozen ray, and spar, and spike, and 

splinter. 
Within me and without, all 's Winter, 

Why should I weep for Adon ? ^ 

Am I, because the sweet Past is no more, 
Dead, as the leaves upon the graves of 

yore ? 
I will breathe boldly, though the air be 

frore 
With freezing fire. Life still beats at 
the core 
Of the world's heart, though Death 

his awe hath laid on 
Thiri dumb white corpse of Adon. 



THE PROPHET. 

When the East lightens with strange 

hints of morn. 
The first tinge of the growing glory takes 
The cold crown of some husht high alp 

forlorn, 
While yet o'er vales below the dark is 

spread. 
Even so the dawning Age, in silence, 

breaks, 
solitai-y soul, on thy still head : 
And we, that watch below with reverent 

fear, 
Seeing thee crowned, do know that day 

is near. 



WEALTH. 

Was it not enough to dream the day to 
death 
Grandly ? and finely feed on faint per- 
fumes ? 
Between the heavy lilacs draw thick 
breath, 
While the noon hummed from glowing 
citron -glooms ? 

Or walk with Morning in these dewy 
bowers, 
'Mid sheaved lilies, and the moth-loved 
lips 
Of purple asters, bearded flat sunflowers, 
And milk-white crumpled pinks with 
blood i' the tips ? 

But I must also, gazing upon thee, 
Pine with delicious pain, and subtle 
smart. 
Till I felt heavy immortality, 

Laden with looks of thine, weigh on 
my heart ! 



WANT. 

YoTJ swore you loved me all last June : 
I And now December 's come and gone. 
JThe Summer went with you — too soon. 
j The Winter goes — alone. 

Next Spring the leaves will all be green : 
But love like ours, once turned to pain, 

Can be no more what it hath been, 
Though roses bloom again. 

Retiirn, return the unvalued wealth 
I gave ! which scarcely profits you — 

The heart 's lost youth — the soul 's lost 
health ^ 
In vain ! . . . false friend, adieu ! 

I keep one faded violet 

Of all once ours, — you left no more. 
What I have lost I may forget. 

But you cannot restore. 



A BIRD AT SUNSET. 

Wild bird, that wingest wide the glim- 
mering moors. 
Whither, by belts of yellowing woods 
away ? 



392 



IN TEAYEL. — CHANGES. 



With pausing sunset thy wild heart al- 
lures 
Deep into dying day ? 

Would that my heart, on wings like 
thine, could pass 
Where stars their light in rosy regions 
lose, — 
A happy shadow o'er the- warm brown 
grass, 
Falling with falling dews ! 

Hast thou, like, me,^ some true-love ofl, 
thine own. 
In fairy lands beyond the utmost seas f^ 
Wlio there, unsolaced, yearns for thee( 
alone. 
And sings to silent trees ? 

tell that woodbird that the Summer 
grieves, 
And the suns darken and the days 
grow cold ; 
And, tell her, love will fade with fading 
leaves. 
And cease in common mould. 

Fly from the winter of the world to her ! 

Fly, happy bird ! I follow in thy 
flight. 
Till thou art lost o'er yonder fringe of fir 

In baths of crimson light. 

My love is dying far away from me. 
/ She sits and saddens in the fading 
/ west. 

For her I mourn all day, and pine to be 
At night upon her breast. 



IN TRAVEL. 

Now our white sail flutters down : 
Now it broadly takes the breeze : 
Now the Avhai'ves iipon the town. 
Lessening, leave us by degrees. 
Blithely blows the morning, shaking 
On your cheek the loosened curls : 
Round our prow the cleft wave, breaking, 
Tumbles off in heaped pearls, 
Which in forks of foam unite. 
And run seething out to sea. 
Where o'er gleams of briny light, 
Dip the dancing gulls in glee. 
Now the mountain serpentine 
Slips out many a snaky line 
Down the dark blue ocean-spine. 



From the boatside, while we pass, 
I can see, as in a glass. 
Pirates on the flat sea-sand. 
Carousing ere they put from land ; 
And the purple-pointed crests 
Of hills whereon the morning rests 
Whose ethereal vivid peaks 
Glimmer in the lucid creeks. 
Now these wind away ; and now 
Hamlets up the mountain-brow 
Peep and peer from roof to roof ; 
And gi'ay castle-walls aloof 
O'er wide vineyards just in grape, 
From whose serfs old Barons held 
Tax and toll in feudal eld. 
Creep out of the uncoiling cape. 
Now the long low layer of mist 
A slow trouble rolls and lifts, 
With a broken billowy motion, 
^rom the rocks and from the rifts, 
Laying bare, just here and there, 
j Black stone-pines, at morn dew-kist 
By salt winds from bound to bound 
Of the great sea freshening round ; 
Wattled folds on bleak brown downs 
Sloping high o'er sleepy towns ; 
Lengths of shore and breadths of ocean. 

Love, lean here upon my shoulder. 
And look yonder, love, with me : 
Now I think that I can see 
In the merry market-places 
Sudden warmths of sunny faces : 
Many a lovely laughing maiden 
Bearing on her loose dark locks 
Rich fruit-baskets heavy-laden, 
In and out among the rocks, 
Knowing not that we behold her. 
Now, love, tell me, can you hear, 
Growing nearer, and more near, 
Sound of song, and plash of oar, 
From wild bays, and inlets hoar, 
While above yon isles afar 
Ghostlike sinks last night's last star ? 



CHANGES. 

Whom first_we love, you know, we sel- 
dom wed. 
Time rules us all. And Life, indeed, 
is noi; 
The thing we planned it out ere hope 
was dead. 
And then, we women cannot choose 
our lot. 



JUDICIUM PARIDIS. 



393 



Much must be borne which it is hard to 
bear : 
Much given away which it were sweet 
to keep. 
God help us all ! who need, indeed, His 
care. 
And yet, I know, the Shepherd loves 
His sheep. 

My little boy begins to babble now 
Upon my knee his earliest infant 
prayer. 
He has his father's eager eyes, I know. 
And, they say too, his mother's sun- 
ny hair. 

But when he sleeps and smiles upon my 
knee. 
And I can feel his light breath come 
and go, 
I think of one (Heaven help and pity 
me !) 
Who loved me, and whom I loved, 
long ago. 

Who might have been . . . ah, what I 
dare not think ! 
We all are changed, God judges for 
us best. 
God help us do our duty, and not shrink, 
And trust in heaven humbly for the 
rest. 

But blame us women not, if some appear 
Too cold at times ; and some too gay 
and light. 
Some griefs gnaw deep. Some woes are 
hard to bear. 
Who knows the Past ? and who can 
judge us right ? 

Ah, were we judged by what we might 
have been, 
And not by what we are, too apt to 
fall! 
My little child — he sleeps and smiles 
between 
These thoughts and me. In heaven 
we shall know all ! 



JUDICIUM PARIDIS. 

I SAID, when young, " Beauty 's the su- 
preme joy. 
Her I will choose, and in all forms 
will face her j 



Eye to eye, lip to lip, and so embrace 
her 
With my whole heart." I said this 
being a boy. 

" First, I will seek her, — naked, or clad 
only 
In her own godhead, as I know of 

yore 
Great bards beheld h.er." So by sea 
and shore 
I sought hex-, and among the mountains 
lonely. 

" There be great sunsets in the wondrous 
West; 
And marvel in the orbings of the moon; 
And glory in the jubilees of June ; 
And power in the deep ocean. For the 
rest, 

"Green-glaring glaciers; purple clouds 
of pine 
White walls of ever-roaring cataracts ; 
Blue thunder drifting over thirsty 
tracts ; 
The homes of eagles ; these, too, are di- 
vine, 

"And terror shall not daunt me — so it be 
Beautiful — or in storm or in eclipse : 
Rocking pink shells, or wrecking 
freighted ships, 

I shall not shrink to find her in the sea. 

"Next, I will seek her — in all shapes 
of wood, 
Or brass, or marble ; or in colors clad ; 
And sensuous lines, to make my spirit 
glad. 
And she shall change her dress with 
every mood. 

"Rose-latticed casements, lone in summer 
lands — 
Some witch's bower : pale sailors on 

the marge 
Of magic seas, in an enchanted barge 
Stranded, at sunset, upon jewelled sands : 

" White nymphs among the lilies : shep- 
herd kings : 
And pink-hooved Fawns : and mooned 

Endymions : 
From every channel through which 
Beauty runs 
To fertilize the world with lovely things. 



394 



JUDICIUM PAEIDIS. 



"I will draw freely, and be satisfied. 
Also, all legends of her apparition 
To men, in earliest times, in each con- 
dition, 

I will inscribe on portraits of my bride. 

"Then, that no single sense of her be 
wanting. 
Music ; and all voluptuous combina- 
tions 
Of sound, with their melodious pal- 
pitations 
To charm the ear, the cells of fancy 
haunting. 

"And in her courts my life shall be 

outrolled 

As one unfurls some gorgeous tapestry, 

Wrought o'er with old Olympian 

heraldry, 

All purple-woven stiff with blazing gold. 

"And I will choose no sight for tears to 
flow : 
I will not look at sorrow : I will see 
Nothing less fair and full of majesty 

Than young Apollo leaning on his bow. 

"And I will let things come and go : 
nor lange 
For knowledge : but from moments 

pluck deUght, 
The while the great days ope and shut 
in light. 
And wax and wane about me, rich with 
change, 

" Some cup of dim hills, where a white 
moon lies, 
Dropt out of weary skies without a 

breath, 
In a great pool : a slumbrous vale be- 
neath : 
And blue damps prickling into white 
fire-flies : 

"Some sunset vision of an Oread, less 
Than half an hour ere moonrise caught 

asleep 
With a flusht cheek, among cmsht 
violets deep, — 
A warm half-glimpse of milk-white 
nakedness, 

" On sumptuous summer eves : shall 
wake for me 
Eapture from all the various stops of life : 



Making it like some charmed Arcadian 
fife 
Filled by a wood-god with his ecstasy." 

These things I said while I was yet a boy. 
And the world showed as between 

dream and waking 
A man may see the face he loves. So, 
breaking 
Silence, I cried . . . "Thou art the SU' 
preme Joy ! " 

My spirit, as a lark hid near the sun, 
Carolled at morning. But ere she had 

dropt 
Half down the rainbow- colored years 
that propped 
Her gold cloud up, and broadly, one by 
one 

The world's great harvest-lands broke on 
her eye. 
She changed her tone, . . . "AVhat is 

it I may keep ? 
For look here, how the merry reapers 
leap : 
Even children glean : and each puts 
something by. 

" The pomps of morning pass : when 
evening comes, 
What is retained of these which I may 

show ? 
If for the hills I leave the fields below 
I fear to die an exile from men's homes. 

"Though here I see the orient pageants 
pass, 
I am not richer than the merest hind 
That toils below, all day, among his 
kind. 
And clinks at eve glad horns in the dry 
grass." 

Then, pondering long, at length I made 
confession. 
"I have erred much, rejecting all that 

man did : 
For all my pains I shall go empty- 
handed : 
And Beauty, of its nature foils posses- 
sion." 

Thereafter, I said. . . "Knowledge is 
most fair. 
Surely to know is better than to 
see. 



JUDICIUM PAEIDIS. 



395 



To see is loss : to know is gain : and we 
Grow old. I will store thriftilj"^, with 
care," 

In which mood I endured for many yeai's, 
Valuing all things for their further 

uses : 
And seeking knowledge at all open 
sluices : 
Though oft the stream turned brackish 
with my tears. 

Yet not the less, for years in this same 
mood 
I rested : nor from any object turned 
That had its secret to be spelled and 
leafned, 
Murmuring ever, "Knowledge is most 



Unto which end I shunned the revelling 
And ignorant crowd, that eat the fruits 

and die : 
And called out Plato from his century 
To be my helpmate : and made Homer 
sing. 

Until the awful Past in gathered heaps 
Weighed on my brain, and sunk into 

my soul, 
And saddened through my nature, 
till the whgle 
Of life was darkened downward to the 
deeps. 

And, wave on wave, the melancholy 
ages 
Crept o'er my spirit : and the years 

displaced 
The landmarks of the days : life waned, 
effaced 
Prom action by the sorrows of the sages : 

And my identity became at last 

The record of those others : or, if 

more, 
A hollow shell the sea sung in : a shore 
Of footprints which the waves washed 
from it fast. 

And all was as a dream whence, holding 
breath, 
It seemed, at times, just possible to 

break 
By some wild nervous effort, with a 
shriek, 
Into the real world of life and death. 



But that thought saved me. Through 
the dark 1 screamed 
Against the darkness, and the dark- 
ness broke, 
And broke that nightmare : back to 
life I woke. 
Though weary with the dream which I 
had dreamed. 

life ! life ! life ! With laughter and 
with tears 
I tried myself: I knew that I had 

need 
Of pain to prove that this was life in- 
deed, 
With its warm privilege of hopes and 
fears. 

Love of man made Life of man, that 
saves ! 
man, that standest looking on the 

light : 
That standest on the forces of the 
night : 
That standest up between the stars and 
graves ! 

man ! by man's dread privilege of pain. 
Dare not to scorn thine own soul nor 

thy brother's : 
Though thou be more or less than all 
the others. 
Man's life is all too sad for man's dis- 
dain. 

The smiles of seraphs are less awful far 
Than are the tears of this humanity, 
That sound, in dropping, through 
Eternity, 
Heard in God's ear beyond the furthest 
star. 

If that be true, — the hereditary hate 
Of Love's lost Rebel, since the worlds 

began, — 
The very Fiend, in bating, honors 
Man : 
Flattering with Devil-homage Man's 
estate. 

If two Eternities, at strife for us. 

Around each human soul wage silent 

war, 
Dare we disdain ourselves, though 
fall'n we are, 
With Hell and Heaven looking on us 
thus ? 



396 



NIGHT. 



Whom God hath loved, whom Devils 
dare not scorn, 
Despise not thou, — the meanest hu- 

.man creature. 
Climh, if thou canst, the heights of 
thine own nature. 
And look toward Paradise where each 
was born. 

So I spread sackcloth on my former pride : 
And sat down, clothed and covered up 

with shame : 
And cried to God to take away my 
blame 
Among my brethren : and to these I cried 

To come between my crime and my 
despair. 
That they might help my heart up, 

when God sent 
Upon my soul its proper punishment. 
Lest that should be too great for me to 
bear. 

And so I made my choice : and learned 
to live 
Again, and worship, as my spirit 

yearned : 
So much had been admired — so much 
been learned — 
So much been given me — 0, how much 
to give ! 

Here is the choice, and now the time, 
chooser ! 
Endless the consequence though brief 

the choice. 
Echoes are waked down ages by thy 
voice : 
Speak : and be thou the gainer or the 
loser. 

And I bethought me long , . . "Though 
garners split, 
If none but thou be fed art thou more 

full?" 
For surely Knowledge and the Beauti- 
ful 
Are human ; must have love, or die for it ! 

To Give is better than to Know or See : 
And both are means : and neither is 

the end : 
Knowing and seeing, if none call thee 
friend, 
Beauty and knowledge have done naught 
for thee. 



Though I at Aphrodite all day long 
Gaze until sunset with a thirsty eye, 
I shall not drain her boundless beauty 
dry 
By that wild gaze : nor do her fair face 
wrong. 

For who gives, giving, doth win back his 
gift: 
And knowledge by division grows to 

more : 
Who hides the Master's talent shall 
die poor. 
And starve at last of his own thankless 
thrift. 

I did this for another : and, behold ! 

My work hath blood in it : but thine 
hath none : 

Done for thyself, it dies in being done : 
To what thou buyest thou thyself art sold. 

Give thyself utterly away. Be lost. 
Choose some one, sometliing : not thy- 
self, thine own : 
Thou canst not perish : but, thrice 
greater grown, — 
Thy gain the greatest where thy loss was 
most, — 

Thou in another shalt thyself new-find. 
The single globule, lost in the wide sea, 
Becomes an ocean. Each identity 

Is greatest in the greatness of its kind. 

Who serves for gain, a slave, by thank- 
less pelf ^Z' 
Is paid ; who gives himself is priceless, 

free. 
I give' niyself, a man, to God : lo, He 
Benders me back a saint unto myself ! 



NIGHT. 

Come to me, not as once thou earnest, 
Night ! 
With light and splendor up the gor- 
geous West ; 
Easing the heart's rich sense of thee 
with sighs 
Sobbed out of all emotion on Love's 

breast ; 
While the dark world waned wavering 
into rest. 
Half seen athwart the dim delicious light 
Of languid eyes : 



SONG. — ELISABETTA SIRANI. 



397 



But softly, soberly ; and dark — more 
dark ! 
Till my life's shadow lose itself in 
thine. 
Athwart the light of slowly-gather- 
ing tears, 
That come between me and the star- 
light, .shine 
From distant melancholy deeps divine, 
While day slips downward through a 
rosy arc 
To other spheres. 



SONG. 

Flow, freshly flow. 

Dark stream, below ! 

While stars grow light above : 

By willowy banks, through lonely downs, 

Past terraced walls in silent towns, 

And bear me to my love ! 

Still, as we go, 

Blow, gently blow. 

Warm wind, and blithely move 

These dreamy sails, that slowly glide, — 

A .shadow on the shining tide 

That bears me to my love. 

Fade, sweetly fade 

In dewy shade 

On lonely grange and grove, 

lingering day ! and loring the night 

Through all her milk-white mazes bright 

That tremble o'er my love. 

The sunset wanes 

From twinkling panes. 

Dim, misty myriads move 

Down glimmering streets. One light I 

see — 
One happy light, that shines for me, 
And lights me to my love ! 



FORBEAKANCE. 

Call me not. Love, unthankful or un- 
kind, 
That I have left my heart with thee, 
and iled. 
I were not worth that wealth which I 
resigned. 
Had I not chosen poverty iirstead. 



Grant me but solitude ! I dare not swerve 
From my soul's law, — a slave, though 
serving thee. 

I but forbear more grandly to deserve : 
The free gift only cometh of the free. 



HELIOS HYPERIONIDES. 

Helios all day long his allotted labor 
pursues ; 
No rest to his passionate heart and his 
panting horses given, 
From the moment when roseate-fingered 
Eos kindles the dews 
And spurns the salt sea-floors, ascend- 
ing silvery the heaven. 
Until from the hand of Eos Hesperos, 
trembling, receives 
His fragrant lamp, and faint in the 
twilight hangs it up. 
Then the over-wearied son of Hyperion 
lightly leaves 
His dusty chariot, and softly slips into 
his golden cup : 
And to holy ^Ethiopia, under the ocean- 
stream. 
Back from the sunken retreats of the 
sweet Hesperides, 
Leaving his unloved labor, leaving his 
unyoked team. 
He sails to his much-loved wife ; and 
stretches his limbs at ease 
In a laurelled lawn divine, on a bed of 
beaten gold. 
Where he pleasantly sleeps, forgetting 
his travel by lands and seas. 
Till again the clear-eyed Eos comes with 
a finger cold. 
And again, from his white wife severed, 
Hyperionides 
Leaps into his flaming chariot, angrily 
gathers the reins. 
Headlong flings his course through 
Uranos, much in wrath. 
And over the seas and mountains, over 
the rivers and plains. 
Chafed at heart, tumultuous, pushes 
his burning path. 



ELISABETTA SIRANL 

1665. 

Just to begin, — and end ! so much, — 
no more ! 
To touch upon the very poiut at last 



398 



ELISABETTA SIRANI. 



"Where life slioxild cling : to feel the 
solid shore 
Safe ; where, the seething sea's strong 
toil o'erpast, 
Peace seemed appointed ; then, with all 
the store 
Half-undivulged of the gleaned ocean 
cast, 
Like a discouraged wave's on the hleak 
strand. 
Where what appeared some temple 
(whose glad Priest 
To gather ocean's sparkling gift should 
stand, 
Bidding the wearied wave, from toil 
releast, 
Sleep in the marble harbors bathed with 
bland 
And quiet sunshine, flowing from full 
east 
Among the laurels) proves the dull blind 
rock's 
Fantastic front, — to die, a disallowed, 
Dasht purpose : which the scornful shore- 
clitf mocks. 
Even as it sinks ; and all its wealth 
bestowed 
In vain, — mere food to feed, perchance, 
stray flocks 
Of the coarse sea-gull ! weaving its 
own shroud 
Of idle foam, swift ceasing to be seen ! 
— Sad, sad, my father ! . . . yet it 
comes to this. 
For I am dying. AU that might have 
been — 
That must have been ! . . . the days, 
so hard to miss, 
So sure to come ! . . . eyes, lips, that 
seemed to lean 
In on me at my work, and almost 
kiss 
The curls bowed o'er it, . . . lost ! 0, 
never doubt 
I should have lived to know them all 
again. 
And from the crowd of praisers single 
out 
For special love those forms beheld so 
plain 
Beforehand. "When my pictures, borne 
about 
Bologna, to the church doors, led their 
train 
Of kindling faces, turned, as by they go. 
Up to these windows, — standing at 
your side 



Unseen, to see them, I (be sure !) should 
know 
And welcome back those eyes and lips, 
descried 
Long since in fancy : for I loved them so, 
And so believed them ! Think !.. . . 
Bologna's pride 
My paintings ! . . . Guido Eeni's mantle 
mine . . . 
And I, the maiden artist, prized among 
The masters, ... ah, that dream was too 
divine 
For earth to realize ! I die so young. 
All this escapes me ! God, the gift be 
Thine, 
Not man's then . . .better so ! That 
throbbing throng 
Of human faces fades out fast. Even 
yours, 
Beloved ones, the inexorable Fate 
(For all our vowed affections !) scarce 
endures 
About me. Must I go, then, desolate 
Out from among you ? Nay, my work 
insures 
Fit guerdon somewhere, — though the 
gift must wait ! 
Had I lived longer, life would sure have 
set 
Earth's gift of fame in safety. But I 
die. 
Death must make safe the heavenly guer- 
don yet. 
I trusted time for immortality, — 
There was my en-or ! Father, never let 
Doubt of reward confuse my memory ! 
Besides, — I have done much : and what 
is done 
Is well done. All my heart conceived, 
my hand 
Made fast . . . mild martyr, saint, and 
weeping nun. 
And truncheoned prince, and wan-ior 
with bold brand, 
Yetkeepmylife upon them ; — as the sun, 
Though fallen below the limits of the 
land. 
Still sees on every fonn of purple cloud 
His painted presence. 

Flaring August 's here, 

September 's coming ! Summer's broid- 

ered shroud 

Is borne away in triumph by the year : 

Red Autumn drops, from all his branches 

bowed. 

His careless wealth upon thecostly bier. 



ELISABETTA SIRANI. 



399 



We must be cheerful. Set the casement 
wide. 
One last look o'er the places I have 
loved, 
One last long look ! , , . Bologna, my 
pride 
Among thy palaced streets ! The days 
have moved 
Pleasantly o'er us. What has been de- 
nied 
To our endeavor ? Life goes unre- 
pioved. 
To make the best of all things, is the best 
Of all means to be happy. This I 
know. 
But cannot phrase it finely. The night's 
rest 
The day's toil sweetens. Flowers are 
warmed by snow. 
All 's well God wills. Work out this 
grief. Joy's zest 
Itself is salted with a touch of woe. 
There 's nothing comes to us may not be 
borne. 
Except a too great happiness. But 
this 
'Comes rarely. Though I know that you 
will mourn 
The little maiden helpmate you must 
miss, 
Thanks be to God, I leave you not for- 
lorn. 
There should be comfort in this dying 
kiss. 
Let Barbara keep my colors for herself. 

I 'm sorry that Lucia went away 
In some unkindness. 'T was a cheerful 
elf! 
Send her my scarlet ribands, mother ; 
say 
I thought of her. My palette 's on the 
shelf, 
Surprised, no doubt, at such long holi- 
day. 
In the south window, on the easel, stands 
My picture for the Empress Eleanore, 
Still wanting some few touches, these 
weak hands 
Must leave to others. Yet there 's 
time before 
The year ends. And the Empress' own 
commands 
You '11 find in writing. Barbara's 
brush is more 
Like mine than Anna's ; let her finish it. 
0, . . . and there 's 'Maso, our poor 
fisherman ! 



You '11 find my work done for him ; 
something fit 
To hang among his nets : you liked 
the plan 
My fancy took to please our friend's dull 
wit, 
Scarce brighter than his old tin fish- 
ing-can. . . . 
St. Margaret, stately as a ship fi;ll sail. 
Leading a dragon by an azure band ; 
The ribbon flutters gayly in the gale ; 
The monster follows the Saint's guid- 
ing hand, 
Wrinkled to one grim smile fi'om head 
to tail : 
For in his horny hide his heart grows 
bland. 
— Where are you, dear ones ? . . . 

'T is the dull, faint chill. 
Which soon will shrivel into burning 
pain ! 
Dear brother, sisters, father, mother, — 
still 
Stand near me ! While your faces 
fijct remain 
Within my sense, vague fears of unknown 
ill 
Are softly crowded out, • . . and yet, 
't is vain ! 
Greet Giulio Banzi ; greet Antonio ; greet 
Bartolomeo, kindly. When I 'mgone. 
And in the school-room, as of old, you 
meet, 
— Ah, yes ! you 'II miss a certain merry 
tone, 
A cheerful face, a smile that should com- 
plete 
The vague place in the household 
picture grown 
To an aspect so familiar, it seems strange 
That aught should alter there. Mere 
life, at least. 
Could not have brought the shadow of a 
change 
Across it. Safely the warm years in- 
creast 
Among us. I have never soiight to 
range 
From our small table at earth's general 
feast, 
To higher places : never loved but you. 
Dear family of friends, except my 
art: 
Nor any form save those my pencil drew 
E'er quivered in the quiet of my 
heart. 



400 



LAST WORDS. 



I die a maiden to Madonna true, 

And would have so continued, . . . 
There, the smart, 
The pang, the faintness ! . . . 

Ever, as I lie 
Here, with the Autumn sunset on my 
face. 
And heavy in my curls (whilst it, and I, 
Together, slipping softly from the place 
We played in, pensively prepare to die), 
A low warm humming simmers in my 
ears, 
— Old Summer afternoons ! faint frag- 
ments rise 
Out of my broken life ... at times 
appears 
Madonna-like a moon in mellow skies : 
The three Fates with the spindle and 
the shears : 
The Grand Duke Cosmo with the Desti- 
nies : 
St. Margaret with her dragon : fitful 
cheers 
Along the Via Urbana come and go : 
Bologna with her towers ! . . . Then 
all grows dim, 



And shapes itself anew, softly and filow, 
To cloistered glooms through which 
the silver hymn 
Eludes the sensitive silence ; whilst below 
The southwest window, just one single, 
slim. 
And sleepy sunbeam, powders with waved 
gold 
A lane of gleamy mist along the gloom, 
Whereby to find its way, through mani- 
fold 
Magnificence, to Guido Eeni's tomb. 
Which, set in steadfast splendor, I be- 
hold. 
And all the while, I scent the incense 
fume, 
Till dizzy grows the brain, and dark the 
eye 
Beneath the eyelid. When the end 
is come. 
There, by his tomb (our master's) let me 
lie. 
Somewhere, not too far off; beneath 
the dome 
Of our own Lady of the Rosary ; 
Safe, where old friends will pass ; and 
still near home ! 



LAST WORDS. 



Will, are you sitting and watching there yet ? And I know, by a certain skill 

That grows out of utter wakefulness, the night must be far spent. Will : 

For, lying awake so many a night, I have learned at last to catch 

From the crowing cock, aiad the clanging clock, and the sound of the beating watch, 

A misty sense of the measureless march of Time, as he passes here, 

Leaving my life behind him ; and I know that the dawn is near. 

But you have been watching three nights. Will, and you looked so wan to-night, 

I thought, as I saw you sitting there, in the sad monotonous light 

Of the moody night-lamp near you, that I could not choose but close 

My lids as fast, and lie as still, as though I lay in a doze : 

For, 1 thought, " He will deem I am dreaming, and then he may steal away, 

And sleep a little : and this will be well." And traly, I dreamed, as I lay 

Wide awake, but all as quiet, as though, the last ofiice done. 

They had streaked me out for the grave, Will, to which 4;hey will bear me anon. 

Dreamed ; for old things and places came dancing about my brain. 

Like ghosts that dance in an empty house : and my thoughts went slipping again 

By green back-ways forgotten to a stiller circle of time. 

Where violets, faded forever, seemed blowing as once in their prime : 

And I fancied that you and I, Will, were boys again as of old. 

At dawn on the hill-top together, at eve in the field by the fold ; 

Till the thought of this was growing too wildly sweet to be borne. 

And I oped my eyes, and turned me round, and there, in the light forlorn, 

I find you sitting beside me. But tlie dawn is at hand, I know. 

Sleep a little. I shall not die to-night. You may leave me. Go. 



LAST WORDS. 401 

Eh ! is it time for the diiiik ? must yon mix it ? it does me no good. 
>£)Ut thanks, old friend, true friend ! I would live for your sake, if 1 could. 
Ay, there are some good things in life, that fall not away with the rest. 
And, of all best things upon earth, I hold that a faithful friend is the best^- 
i/For woman, Will, is a thorny Hower : it breaks, and we bleed and smart : 
• The blossom falls at the fairest, and the thorn runs into the heart. 
And woman's love is a bitter fruit ; and, however he bite it, or sip. 
There 's many a man has lived to curse the taste of that fruit on his lip. t — ' 
! But never was any man yet, as I ween, be he whosoever he may. 

That has known wiiat a true friend is. Will, and wished that knowledge away. 

You were proud of my promise, faithful despite of my fall, 

S-.id when the world seemed over sweet, sweet when the world turned gall : 

When I cloaked myself in the pride of praise from what God grieved to see, 

You saw through the glittering lie of it all, and silently mourned for me : 

When the world took back what the world had given, and scorn with praise 

changed place, 
I, from mjfc sackcloth and ashes, looked up, and saw hope glow on your face : 
Therefore, fair weather be yours. Will, whether it shines or pours, 
And, if I can slip from out of my grave, my spirit will visit yours. 

woman eyes that have smiled and smiled, woman lips that have kist 
The life-blciod out of my heart, why thus forever do you persist. 
Pressing out .of the dark all round, to bewilder my dying hours 
With your ghostly sorceries brewed from the breath of your poison-flowers ? 
Still, though the idol be broken, I see at their ancient revels, 
Tlie riven altar around, come dancing the self-same devils. 
Lente currite, lentc curritc, noctis equi ! 
Linger a little, Time, and let me be saved ere I die. 
How many a night 'neath her window have I walked in the M'ind and rain, 
Only to look at her shadow fleet over the lighted pane. 
Alas ! 't was the shadow that rested, 't was herself that fleeted, you see, 
And now I am dying, I know it : — dying, and where is she ! 
Dancing divinely, perchance, or, over her soft harp strings. 
Using the past to give pathos to the little new song that she sings. 
Bitter ? I dai-e not be bitter in the few last hours left to live. 
Needing so much forgiveness, God grant me at least to forgive. 
There can be no space for the ghost of her face down in the narrow room, 
And the mole is blind, and the worm is mute, and there must be rest in the tomlx 
And just one failure more or less to a life that seems to be 
(Whilst I lie looking upon it, as a bird on the broken tree 
She hovers about, ere making wing for a land of lovelier growth, 
Brighter blossom, and purer air, somewhere far off in the south,) 
Failure, crowning failure, failure from end to end. 
Just one more or less, what matter, to the many no gi'ief can mend ? 
Not to know vice is virtue, not fate, however men rave : 
And, next to this I hold that man to be but a coward and slave 
Who bears the plague-spot about him, and, knowing it, shrinks or fears 
■To brand it out, though the burning knife should hiss in his heart's hot tears. 
But I have caught the contagion of a world that I never loved, 
Pleased myself with approval of those that I never approved. 
Paltered with pleasures that pleased not, and fame where no fame could be. 
And how shall I look, do you think. Will, when the angels are looking on me ? 
Yet oh ! the confident spirit once mine, to dare and to do ! 
Take the world into my hand, and shape it, and make it anew : 
Gather all men in my purpose, men in their darkness and dearth, 
Men in their meanness and misery, made of the dust of the earth. 
Mould them afresh, and make out of them Man, with his spirit sublime, 
26 



402 LAST WORDS. 

Man, the great heir of Eternity, dragging the conquests of Time ! 

Therefore I mingled among them, deeming the poet should hold 

All natures saved in his own, as the world in the ark was of old ; 

All natures saved in his own to be types of a nobler race, 

"When the old world passeth away and the new world taketh his place. 

Triple fool in my foUy ! purblind and impotent worm, 

Thinking to move the world, who could not myself stand firm ! 

Cheat of a worn-out trick, as one that on shipboard roves 

Wherever the wind may blow, still deeming the continent moves ! 

Blowing the frothy bubble of life's brittle purpose away ; 

Child, ever chasing the morrow, who now cannot ransom a day : 

Still I called Fame to lead onward, forgetting she follows behind 

Those who know whither they walk through tlie pi-aise or dispraise of mankind. 

All my life (looking back on it) shows like the broken stair 

That winds round a ruined tower, and never will lead anywhere. 

Friend, lay your hand in my own, and swear to me, when you have seen 

My body borne out from the door, ere the grass on my grave shall be green, 

You will burn every book I have written. And so perish, one and all, 

Each trace of the struggle that failed with the life that I cannot recall. 

Dust and ashes, earth's dross, which the mattock may give to the mole ! 

Something, though stained and defaced, survives, as I trust, with the soul. 

Something ? . . . Ajj^, something comes back to me . . . Think ! that I might have 

been . . . what ? 
Almost, I fancy at times, what I meant to have been, and am not. 
Where was the fault ? Was it strength fell short ? And yet (I can speak of it now ! ) 
How my spirit sung like the resonant nerve of a warrior's battle-bow 
When the shaft has leapt from the string, what time, her first bright banner un- 
furled. 
Song aimed her arrowy ])urpose in me sharp at the heart of the world. 
Was it the hand that faltered, unskilled ? or was it the eye that deceived ? 
However I reason it out, thei'e remains a failure time has not retrieved. 
I said I would live in all lives that beat, and love in all loves that be : 
I would crown me lord of all passions ; and the passions were lords of me. 
I would compass every circle, I would enter at every door, 
In the starry spiral of science, and the labyrinth of lore. 
Only to follow the flying foot of love to his last retreat. 
Fool ! that with man's all-imperfect woiild circumscribe God's all-complete ! 
Arrogant error ! M-hereby I starved like the fool in the fable of old. 
Whom the gods destroyed by the gift he craved, turning all things to gold. 
Be wise : know what to leave unknown. The flowers bloom on the brink, 
But black death lurks at the bottom. Help men to enjoy, not to think, 
poet to whom I give place ! cull the latest eff"ect, leave the cause. 
Few that dive for the pearl of the deep but are crushed in the kraken's jaws. 
While the harp of Arion is heard at eve over the glimmering ocean : 
He floats in the foam, on the dolphin's back, gliding with gentle motion, 
Over the rolling water, under the light of the beaming star. 
And the nyniphs, half asleep on the surface, sail moving his musical car. 
A little knowledge will turn youth gray. And I stood, chill in the sun, 
Naming you each of the roses ; blest by the beauty of none. 
My song had an after-savor of the salt of many tears. 
Or it burned with a bitter foretaste of the end as it now appears : 
And the world that had paused to listen awhile, because the first notes were gay, 
Passed on its way with a sneer and a smile : " Has he nothing fresher to say ? 
This poet's mind was a weedy flower that presently comes to naught ! " 
For the world was not so sad but what my song was sadder, it thought. 
Comfort me not. For if aught be worse than failure from over-stress 



LAST WORDS. 403 1 

Of a life's prime purpose, it is to sit down content with a little success. 
Talk not of genius baffled. Genius is master of man. ■, 
Genius does what it must, and talent does what it can. i 
Blot out my name, that the spirits of Shakespeare and Milton and Burns I 
Look not down on the praises of fools with a pity my soul yet spurns. I 
And yet, had I only the trick of an aptitude shrewd of its kind, i 
I should have lived longer, I think, more merry of heart and of mind. i 
Surely I knew (who better ?) the innermost secret of each i 
Bird, and beast, and flower. Failed I to give to them speech ? j 
All the pale spirits of storm, that sail down streams of the wind, ; 
Cleaving the thunder-cloud, with wild hair blowing behind ; | 
All the soft seraphs that float in the light of the crimson eve, ■! 
When Hesper begins to glitter, and the heavy woodland to heave : j 
All the white nymphs of the water that dwell 'mid the lilies alone : j 
And the buskined maids for the love of whom the hoary oak-trees groan ; i 
They came to my call in the forest ; they crept to my feet from the river : 
They softly looked out of the sky when I sung, and their wings beat with breath- 
less endeavor \ 
The blocks of the broken thunder piling their stormy lattices, i 
Over the moaning mountain walls, and over the sobbing seas. i 
So many more reproachful faces around my bed ! I 
Voices moaning about me : " Ah ! couldst thou not heed what we said ? " ] 
Peace to the past ! it skills not now : these thoughts that vex it in vain j 
Are but the dust of a broken purpose blowing about the brain ] 
Which presently will be tenantless, when the wanton worms carouse, ; 
And the mole builds over my bones his little windowless house. I 
It is growing darker, and stranger, Will, and colder, — dark and cold, ', 
Dark and cold ! Is the lamp gone out ? Give me thy hand to hold. i 
No : 't is life's brief candle burning down. Tears ? tears, Will ! Why, ' 
This which we call dying is only ceasing to die. j 
It is but the giving over a game all lose. Fear life, not death. '■ 
The hard thing was to live. Will. To whatever bourn this breath ^ 
Is going, the way is easy now. With flowers and music, life. 

Like a pagan sacrifice, leads us along to this dark High Priest with the knife. ' 

I have been too peevish at mere mischance. For whether we build it, friend, .' 

Of brick or jasper, life's large base dwindles into this point at the end, ■) 

A kind of nothing ! Who knows whether 't is fittest to weep or laugh i 

At those thin curtains the spider spins o'er each dusty epitaph ? i 
I talk wildly. But this I know, that not even the best and first, 

When all is done, can claim by desert what even to the last and worst ' 

Of us weak workmen, God from the depth of his infinite mercy giveth. ' 

These bones shall rest in peace, for I know that my Redeemer liveth. i 

Doubtful images come and go ; and I seem to be passing them by. j 

Bubbles these be of the mind, which show that the stream is hurrying nigh i 

To the home of waters. Already I feel, in a sort of still sweet awe, i 

The great main current of all that I am beginning to draw and draw : 

Into perfect peace. I attain at last ! Life 's a long, long reaching out ] 

Of the soul to something beyond her. Now comes the end of all doubt. 1 

The vanishing point in the picture ! I have uttered weak words to-night, j 

xVnd foolish. A thousand failures, what are these in the sight i 

Of the One All-Perfect who, whether man fails in his work, or succeeds, j 

Builds surely, solemnly up from our broken days and deeds j 

The infinite purpose of time. We are but day-laborers all, i 

Early or late, or first or last at the gate in the vineyard wall. : 

Lord ! if, in love, though fainting oft, I have tended thy gracious Vine, j 

0, quench the thirst on these dying lips, Thou who pourest the wine ! ; 

Hush ! I am in the way to study a long, long silence now. i 



404 LAST WORDS. 

I know at last what I cannot tell : I see what I may not show. 

Pray awhile for my soul. Then sleep. There is nothing iu this to fear. 

I shall sleep into death. Night sleeps. The hoarse wolf howls not near, 

No dull owl beats the casement, and no rough-bearded star 

Stares on my mild departure from yon dark window bar. 

Nature takes no notice of those that are coming or going. 

To-morrow make ready my grave, Will. To-morrow new flowers will he hlowing. 



INDEX. 



[The titles in capital letters are those of the principal divisions of the work ; those in lower- 
case are single poems, or the subdivisions of long poems.] 



Adieu, Mignonne, ma Belle . . . 208 

Adon 391 

X I'Entresol ^ 190 

Aloe, The . . . . . . .212 

Appearances 384 

APPLE OF LIFE, THE . . . .150 

Aristocracy 375 

Artist, The 358 

Associations 374 

Astarte 198 

At her Casement ..... 375 
At Home after the Ball . . . .200 

At Home during the Ball ... 199 

AuCafe*** 201 

Autumn 225 

Aux Italiens 194 

Babylonia 219 

Bird at Sunset, A 391 

Bluebeard 236 

Canticle of Love, The 233 

" Carpe Diem " 214 

Castle of King Macbeth, The . . . 237 

Chain to wear, A 184 

Change 183 

Changes 392 

Chess-Board, The 206 

Cloud, The 173 

CLYTEMNESTRA 300 

Compensation 210 

Condemned Ones 180 

Contraband 390 

Conielia 246 

Count Rinaldo Rinaldl .... 185 

Death-in-Life 237 

Death of King Hacon, The ... 213 

Desire 168 

Dream, A 245 

Earl's Return, The 344 

Elayne Le Blane 379 

Elisabetta Sirani 397 

Epilogue. 

Part I 261 

Part II 263 

Part III ^266 

Eros 171 

Euthanasia 253 

Evening 390 

Evening in Tuscany, An . . . . 376 



Fancy, A .174 

Failure 250 

Farewell, A 376 

FataUty 169 

Fatima 236 

Forbearance 397 

Fount of Truth, The 214 

Fugitive, The 238 

Ghost Story, A 235 

Going bacl< again 236 

Good-Night in the Porch . . . .340 

Heart and Nature, The .... 222 

Helios Hyperionides 397 

How the Song was made . . . 384 

In Travel 392 

Indian Love-Song ..... 171 

Jacqueline 226 

Judicium Paridis 393 

King Hennandiaz 389 

King Limos 237 

King Solomon 245 

Last Message, The . . . . .187 

Last Remonstrance, The ... 206 

Last Time that I met Lady Ruth, The . 217 

Last Words 400 

Leoline 387 

Leafless Hours 225 

Letter to Cordelia, A 250 

Love-Letter, A 177 

LUCILE .9 

Madame la Marquise .... 193 

Magic Land, The 168 

Macromicros 229 

Matrimonial Counsels .... 218 

"Medio de Fonte Leporum" . . . 213 

Meeting again 375 

Merraaiden, The 375 

Metempsychosis 235 

Midges 216 

MINOR POEMS. .' . . . .369 

Misanthropos 251 

Morning and Meeting 172 

Mystery 230 

NaeQiae 224 



406 



INDE] 



Neglected Heart, The .... 384 

News 185 

Niglit 396 

Niglit in the Fisherman's Hut, A. 

Part I. The Fisherman's Daughter 240 
Part II. The Legend of Lord Kosen- 

crantz .... 241 

Part III Daybrealc ... 243 
Part IV. Breakfast . . . .244 

Novel, The 194 

North Sea, The 239 

On my Twenty-fourth Year . . . 225 

On the Sea 188 

Once 175 

Parting of Launcelot and Guenevere, The 369 

Pedier, Tlie . . . ... . 234 

Portrait, The . . _ . . .197 

Prayer, A 253 

" Prensus in .^gaso " 189 

Progress «» * 196 

Prophet, The 391 

Psahn of Confession, A . . . . 257 

Queen Guenevere 383 

Quiet Moment, A 223 

Eemembrance, A 192 

Requieseat 261 

Betrospections 385 

Boot and Leaf 173 

Ruined Palace, The 385 

Seaside Songs, 1 378 

II 378 

See-Saw 218 

Shore, The 238 

Silence 184 

Since • 170 

Small People 235 

Song 206 

Song 377 

Song 389 

Song 397 

Sorcery 208 

Soul's Loss, A 356 

Soul's Science, The 257 

Spring and Winter 388 



Storm, The .... 
Summer-Time that was. The 
Sunset Fancy, A . 
Swallow, The . 



TANNHAUSER 272 

Terra Incognita 191 

To 3S3 

To Cordelia 249 

To Mignonne 209 

To the Queen of Serpents . . . 236 
TRANSLATIONS FROM PETER RON- 
SARD. 
"Void le Bois que ma Saiucte An- 

gelette " 210 

"Cache pour cette Nuict" . . 211 



180 
379 
374 
389 



" Les Espices sont a Ceres " 
" Ma Douce Jouvence " . 
" Page suy Moy " . 



VampjTe, The .... 

Venice 

Vision, A 

Vision of Virgins, A . 

Voice across my Spirit falls. Thy 

WANDERER, THE. 

Dedication. To J. F. , 
Prologue. 

Part I. . . . 

Part IL 

Part III. 



211 
211 
211 

182 
187 
170 
386 

385 



157 

158 
163 
164 
168 
189 
212 
222 
225 
253 



Book L In Italy 

Book II. In France 

Book III. In England . 

Book IV. In Switzerland 

Book V. In Holland . 

Book VI. Palingenesis . 
Epilogue. 

Part 1 261 

Part II 263 

Part III 268 

Want 891 

Warnings 173 

Wealth 391 

Wife's Tragedy, The 361 

"Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth which was 

crucified" 24! 



THE END. 



i>V 



i 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 152 496 3 







